The Gift
by BirdieDixon
Summary: A few months into their stay in Alexandria, Glenn finds Daryl on watch and gives him an unexpected gift. Feeling alive for the first time since Grady, he returns to the Greene family farm to learn more about the woman he loved and to try to figure out how he can possibly live without her.
1. Chapter 1

_The gift in this piece is based on an item we know to be in Glenn's possession, but I've tweaked it a little for my dastardly Bethyl purposes._

 _Fair warning: I think a lot of criticisms could be leveled against this story, but the main would probably be that it's a little boring. If you're looking for action and excitement, this isn't for you. This is just a small moment between friends that's stretched out and elaborated on longer than it rightfully should be._

 _Okay, enough hype! On with the show... :)_

* * *

They'd been in Alexandria for a couple months and it had been a difficult adjustment. A struggle to re-civilize their feral selves and re-integrate back into society. A struggle to invest in something again, be a part of something again, trust people again, after everything they'd been through: the devastation of the prison, the depravity of Terminus, the duplicity of Eugene and his fake cure, and the inescapable spectre of death and despair that followed them everywhere. It had been a struggle, but they had all done it. With varying speeds of degrees of enthusiasm, they had all carved out new lives and new roles for themselves in the surreal suburbia they now called home.

And they felt good about it, too. Or good enough. Some were happy; some would never be happy again, but were content; and a couple were indifferent, but were at least relieved to be in a situation that allowed for the luxury of apathy.

Everyone, that is, except Daryl.

For Daryl, even apathy seemed like an unattainable dream. So unattainable, it wasn't worth dreaming about at all. He didn't even _imagine_ a day when he could feel neutral about Alexandria. Couldn't conceive of a time when he wouldn't be suffocating there. It would be like imagining the day he wouldn't drown under water.

No, Daryl wasn't happy; he wasn't content; and he wasn't indifferent.

He was dying.

More and more everyday, he was dying in Alexandria. And the only thing that surprised him about that was that he had kind of thought he was dead already. He had felt like a man on life-support after Beth had been kidnapped: a shadowy figure living only in a purely mechanical sense. And when Dawn pulled the trigger in that hallway at Grady, it was like she pulled the plug on him, too. She killed them both with a single bullet: turning Beth into an angel and him into a ghost.

He was dead in every way that mattered.

He didn't think things could get any worse. He only kept pushing on, kept going through the technical motions of life, because his family needed him. And he simply wasn't a quitter. He wasn't going to kill himself, so living was really the only option. And it was a life so hellish, so hollow and empty and lonely, that it almost felt like a just punishment. Like he had failed and he deserved to suffer. Like this was his penance.

So discovering new depths of anguish in Alexandria had come as a bit of a shock and he had cursed himself for his failure of imagination. (Of course things can get worse, he thought mockingly, they _always_ fucking do.) He wasn't remotely surprised that this kind of community would make him miserable, though. Only surprised to find out that it still existed and that he was capable of feeling worse than he already did.

He knew it was the kind of place other people dreamed of living in, including people in his own family. (Rick and Lori certainly had. Probably Carol, too, before Ed beat those dreams out of her. Maybe others.) This was the picture of American success, after all. This was the goal. But it was never his goal, never his dream. It was actually his nightmare. Almost aggressively clean and wholesome. All about impressions and appearances. Before the end of the world, he would have considered it unbearably shallow and fake. (And that's from a man whose own life wasn't exactly defined its depth and honesty.) But after the apocalypse, it felt inauthentic to the point of absurdity. It was a grotesque lie. An artificial island of neighborliness and normalcy in a sea of horror, where oblivious people hosted dinner parties and attended book clubs and played politics in a make-believe society.

It was ridiculous.

And it was killing him.

It was killing him and every day he thought about leaving. Thought about hopping on his bike, driving through that gate and never coming back. Maybe going back to Georgia. (Maybe going back to Herschel's farm. He thought about _that_ possibility a lot.) He considered leaving all the time, but always came to the same conclusion: he couldn't. He couldn't do it. He knew that if he left, someone would come after him. He was confident they wouldn't find him, but he wasn't sure they wouldn't get hurt in the attempt and he couldn't accept anyone risking their lives for him. (He couldn't help but be stung by the bitter irony that this was the first time in his entire life that people actually cared about him and, for once, he wished they didn't.) He also knew that they still needed him. They were safer now, but he still served a purpose, both as a hunter and a protector, and the stability they currently enjoyed could disappear at any time. They might need him more in the future and he couldn't abandon them now.

(And, though he rarely allowed himself to acknowledge it, he also feared the prospect of being truly and completely alone. He knew that if he left, he'd never attach himself to another group again. That he'd be alone for the rest of his life. And while that had a certain brooding appeal, he wasn't so deluded as to think it wouldn't be awful, too. Knew he'd go crazy eventually. Or crazi _er,_ since he suspected he'd lost a fair amount of his sanity already.)

So, he stayed. He didn't leave, but he did everything he could not to be a part of it at all. To stay as far away from Alexandria as possible, either physically or mentally. He went on recruiting missions and supply runs to get outside the walls as often, and for as long, as he could. He hunted. And when he had no choice but to be behind the gate, he took as many shifts on watch as they'd allow: staying on the periphery of the community with his gaze fixed decidedly outward. He was there, but he wasn't really _there_. The only point to his life was to serve the needs of others, so that's what he did. That's _all_ he did.

He worked and he avoided and he died a little more every day.

Which is exactly what he was doing that day in the watchtower: staring off into the woods around Alexandria, feeling trapped behind its walls, and once again entertaining thoughts of hauling ass back to Senoia and running away from it all. He was dreaming of going back to the Greene family home and imagining what he might find there. Trying to picture for the thousandth time what Beth's bedroom would look like and what secrets it might hold. He had often fantasized about what clothes might be in her closet, what books might be on her shelves, what trinkets she might have collected and treasured over her short life. Wondered what it would feel like to be surrounded by her things. To be in a place that was so deeply entwined with _her_. Wondered if he would feel her presence. If he'd sense a connection. If it'd ease any of his heartache or if it'd just make the pain that much more acute.

He was entertaining a particularly enjoyable thought about a hypothetical white sundress when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. It was nowhere near time for a shift change, so he had no idea who it could be and wasn't looking forward to the interruption. He really didn't want to deal with anyone. He wanted to continue exploring Beth's imaginary wardrobe and see what else he'd discover. There might be a pair of short shorts in her dresser he'd never noticed before. Maybe a surprisingly risque Halloween costume stored under the bed. Whoever it was, and whatever they wanted, couldn't possibly compete with that.

A fictional Beth Greene was better than a real anybody else.

When the door opened, he was relieved to see that it was Glenn. Of everyone in Alexandria, he was probably the guy Daryl was most comfortable with. He had known Glenn, and pretty much liked him, since the beginning; and unlike other members of his family, he hadn't really changed much over the years. He'd grown tremendously, he'd matured, but he was still fundamentally the same person. (As opposed to Rick and Carol, who Daryl used to be much closer to, but who had become almost unrecognizable to him over time.)

"Hey, man," Glenn said, walking in. "Glad to see you're back. Hear the run went pretty well."

"Yeah," Daryl agreed, with a characteristic lack of enthusiasm. "Got some decent shit."

Irritation seeped into his voice as he continued, "Coulda gotten more but we ran into a group of walkers and some of these Alexandria fucks can't keep their shit together in a crisis. Ain't even a _crisis_ these days, just normal fuckin' shit, but they act like the world's comin' to a fuckin' end."

He let out a small parody of a laugh at the irony of that statement and Glenn smiled lightly.

"Yeah, I heard about that," he said. "Jackson's not exactly cool under pressure...and he's got nerves of steel compared to Marty." He laughed softly and admitted, "I felt guilty sending you out there with them, but you knew I couldn't go and I knew you didn't want to wait. So, I guess we can consider that a lesson in impatience, dude."

"And they all can't be as good as me," he added with false arrogance and a smile. "That's another lesson, too."

"Yeah, yeah," Daryl said dismissively, throwing out a vaguely obscene hand gesture. "You keep tellin' yourself that."

"I totally will," Glenn agreed cheerfully. "I like my delusions of grandeur. Besides, _someone_ needs to think I'm awesome and no one else is volunteering for the job."

"Didn't _Maggie_ volunteer for that job?" Daryl tried to tease.

"Not at all," Glenn chuckled. "She just volunteered to put up with me while I sit around and think _she's_ awesome."

It was a lie and they both knew it. Maggie loved Glenn (almost) as much as he loved her. And she definitely thought he was _awesome_ , if such a ridiculous word could be applied.

"Smart woman," Daryl said, quirking his mouth in a small smirk. He ran his hand over the back of his neck and, after a few beats, switched gears, asking a little more harshly than he intended, "So, you come up here just to talk about the run or you got somethin' else you wanna jaw about?"

He wasn't trying to be a jerk (and, Lord knows, he could if he wanted to.) He was just eager to get back to Beth's closet and that hypothetical sundress and other unimagined delights still waiting to be discovered.

Glenn had no idea what Daryl was thinking about, or rather what he _wanted_ to be thinking about, but he knew him well enough not to be offended by his tone. A certain level of irritation was to be expected in any encounter with the man, especially these days.

"No, I didn't come to talk about the run," he replied. Adding jokingly, "That was just me making small talk because I know how much you like it."

He cleared his throat and a slightly uncomfortable look crossed his face. He spoke again, his teasing tone gone, "Actually, I came up here because I have something I want to give you. Something I think you should have. Should have given it to you awhile ago, really. I just...well, I just didn't think about it. I didn't really see if for what it was, you know? I mean, I saw what it was for _me_. I just didn't see what it would be for _you_."

He pulled something small out of his pocket and Daryl was at a complete loss as to what it might be. And he was pretty shocked at the very notion of Glenn giving him anything at all, no matter what it was. It was definitely not a situation he had much experience in and it made him a little uneasy.

And, in typical fashion, he didn't handle his discomfort well. "What the _fuck_ you talkin' 'bout?," he practically spat out.

Again, Glenn knew enough not to let phrasing of the question bother him. He just smiled a little and said, "Yeah, that wasn't clear, was it?" He glanced down at the object in his hand, which Daryl could now see looked to be a small card, a little black plastic rectangle, and then looked back up again. "I…," he continued. "Okay, so I have this and it's like the most important thing in the world to me. Like in terms of a possession."

"But I think it might mean even more to you, because…" he took a deep breath and averted his eyes, clearly a little distressed by what he was about to say. "Because at least I still have the real thing," he finished quietly.

He extended his arm to hand over the gift and Daryl reached out for it tentatively. He was stunned by what Glenn had said about its value. Completely unprepared for the idea that this was something of such consequence to him.

"What it is?" he asked in an almost hushed voice.

"It's my picture of Maggie," Glenn replied simply as Daryl took hold of the photograph.

He was about to ask Glenn why the _fuck_ he thought he'd want a picture of Maggie, but he turned over the photo right as Glenn continued, and both of those actions answered the unspoken question.

"Well, that's always how I thought of it anyway," Glenn added. "But as you can see she's not the only one in the picture. I guess it's really a photo of the Greene girls."

The second Daryl saw Beth's face, he felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Her image hit him like a physical blow, making him stagger slightly and take a deep, gasping breath. If his world existed beyond the small picture in his hand, he would have been embarrassed by his reaction. _Was_ embarrassed by it when he thought about it later. In the moment, though, he didn't think about it at all. _Couldn't_ think about it. Couldn't think about anything other than that sweet face, those luminous eyes, beaming back at him from beneath the shiny surface of the well-loved Polaroid.

It was clearly a picture of _Maggie_. It didn't just occupy that role in Glenn's mind, it was the conclusion anyone would draw. She was in the foreground and the main subject of the shot. But Beth was there, too: standing a few feet behind her and smiling, probably at Glenn, from over Maggie's left shoulder. She was slightly out of focus, but it gave the image a softness that almost seemed to capture her better than a crisper portrait would.

And, _fuck_ , was she beautiful. She was so _fucking_ beautiful, Daryl thought. So fucking _beautiful_ and he started to cry. He didn't weep or sob or break down in hysterics, but a steady stream of tears began to fall down his face and he couldn't stop it. Didn't even really try until it started to impact his vision. Until it kept him from seeing her clearly.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and continued to stare at the picture silently, Glenn's presence in the tower temporarily, but entirely, forgotten. (And Glenn, for his part, was completely content to be ignored. To let the moment play out and give Daryl room for his reaction. It was one of the things Daryl liked most about the guy: he knew when to give him his space.)

If the emotions he felt had been more mild, they would have been called _bittersweet_. But _bitter_ didn't come close to touching the depth of his anger, his pain, his resentment. Did nothing to reflect the despair that the seeing her face again elicited. And _sweet_ couldn't even begin to describe the joy. The heart-stopping elation of re-establishing a connection, no matter how small, that he thought was lost forever.

No, _bittersweet_ didn't cover it. It was a brutal bliss. An excruciating ecstasy. It was every feeling he ever had towards her and about her and because of her all balled up in a single fist punching him straight in the gut.

"I miss her so much," he croaked out after a long silence, his voice little more than a throaty whisper. His hands were shaking ever so slightly and his eyes still clung to the photograph as he continued more forcefully, "So _fuckin'_ much."

"I know," Glenn said softly, though he was pretty sure Daryl wasn't actually talking to him.

And he really did.

He really _did_ know.

And he and Maggie were the only ones who could truly say that.

Daryl's devastation over Beth's death had been no secret, but it's nature wasn't fully understood by most people. Everyone knew he felt guilty over her abduction and assumed it was that sense of responsibility that made the loss so hard to handle. So poignant and so tragic. And after everything in the past two years, they were _all_ getting to the breaking point. They were all getting to the place where one more death, one more setback, could be one too many. Could be the one they didn't come back from. The thing that crushes them entirely. So, that's what they all thought: he felt responsible for a murder, the murder of a _friend_ , a murder he _witnessed_ , and he just reached his limit.

A few weeks into their stay in Alexandria, however, Maggie and Glenn learned there was more to the story.

They had long known the basic outline about what happened between Daryl and Beth after the prison fell. He had told everyone about their escape, and her subsequent kidnapping, in the train car at Terminus. But he had only given the broad strokes. At the time, that had been enough for Maggie. They were in mortal danger and trapped with a dozen other people in a metal box. They weren't in a position to have a personal discussion. And, more importantly, she still had hope that they'd find Beth again. Didn't realize that the story Daryl had to tell would be one of the last known accounts of her sister's final days.

And once she came to that realization, once she saw Beth cradled limply in Daryl's arms, she was initially too numb to inquire. She was grief stricken, and so was he, and neither had any desire to talk. So they both just lost themselves in the daily struggle to survive and wallowed privately in their own despair. When they settled into their new home, however, Maggie found her bearings again. And when she finally felt like she had the strength to handle it, she asked Daryl to tell her everything. Everything he could remember about Beth and those weeks they spent together.

So he did.

He sat down with her and Glenn in their picture-perfect living room one night and told them what he could. Told them almost everything. Told them more than he had originally intended. He knew part of Maggie _needed_ to know the story, had to hear the last chapter of the Book of Beth she had grown up reading; and he knew Beth would always try to give anyone what they needed, would always want to help; so he had planned on being as forthcoming as possible. Had known he would have to share more than he would like. Share things that felt incredibly private and personal and so deeply precious to him. But he had still planned on holding a little back. Had planned on keeping just a few things for himself. Once the words started coming, though, they wouldn't stop. He lost himself to the memories and, for one of the first times in his life, spoke without thought.

Despite what he felt for her, his relationship with Beth had always been strictly platonic. There was nothing in the events he described that would indicate a romantic relationship or even a romantic _inclination_ between them. But there was something in the words he used, in the way he spoke, how his voice broke and shook at points, turned tender and soft at others, that revealed everything that was in his heart.

Exposed him completely.

He hadn't said it, but they'd known. And he'd _known_ they'd known. Knew it the moment he looked up from his lap, where his gaze had been fixed the entire time, and saw their faces. Saw the pain and the sadness and the sheer _understanding_ they radiated. The compassion. Compassion for _him_. They had been silent as he spoke, which is why he was able to lose himself to the experience so completely, and Maggie's first attempt at speech had faltered, " _God, Daryl...were you in.."_ She had then stopped herself and, after taking a deep breath, shook her head and asked instead, " _You really miss her, don't you?"_.

He was so grateful that she did that. So thankful that, for whatever reason, she decided to change her question. He'd known what she was going to ask him, of course. " _Were you in love with her?"_ He'd seen her tongue reaching for the _L_ and, even if he hadn't, her expression had pretty much given it away. Made it clear she already knew the answer. But he _really_ hadn't wanted to answer it himself. Didn't want to have to actually say _yes_ or _no_. He could never deny it, of course. Could never bring himself to tell such a cruel lie. To deliver such an insult to the woman he did, indeed, love. But he didn't want to confess his feelings to Maggie, or to anyone else, either. Not so much because he didn't want them to know (though he definitely felt it wasn't any of their business), but because he had never told _her_. He had never told her and it just seemed wrong to tell someone else first.

And, thanks to Maggie's kind rewording (and he ultimately came to that conclusion, that it was kindness that made her do it), he didn't have to. She had asked him a question he could answer without hesitation. And it was an answer Beth herself knew long ago.

Yes, he had said simply. He missed her.

He missed her so damn bad.

So when Glenn's hushed _I know_ alerted him to the fact that the confession had escaped his lips unbidden this time, he didn't care. But it did bring his attention back to Glenn's presence. Brought his mind back to this man, this _friend_ , who had just given him a small part of Beth back. And it really hit him for the first time just what he had done. The true enormity of it.

Glenn had given him the only picture he had of his wife, so that Daryl could have one of the woman he loved.

Daryl had received very few gifts in his life, but - even if he had been showered with them every day - nothing could have ever been as meaningful as that photo. Nothing could have ever touched him so much. And to know that something like that, something so priceless and incomparable, had come to be his through such sacrifice - had come at such a high cost to the giver - completely overwhelmed him. It was the kind of generosity he'd only ever found among this strange group of people he now called family, particularly the one girl he wanted to be his family most of all. And to see that generosity displayed to the greatest degree he'd ever encountered, to the greatest degree he could ever even _imagine_ , through the sharing of a piece of Beth was such a fitting tribute to her kindness that it both warmed and broke his heart.

 _Don't you think that's beautiful?_

It _is_ beautiful, he thought. It's so beautiful, Beth.

And, sometimes, the good ones _do_ survive.

He had always thought that Glenn was a good man, but he realized in that moment that he never truly appreciated the depth of his character. Saw again, but for the first time, why Herschel thought he was the right man for his daughter. Why he was loved like a son by a man Daryl had so deeply respected.

He was at a total loss for words. He was speechless, but he knew he needed to say something. Actually _wanted_ to say something. Wanted to try to convey his gratitude in whatever pitiful way he could.

"I don't..." he stumbled, unable to look Glenn directly in the eye. He ran his free hand through his hair and tried again, "I can't tell you how much this means to me, man. You don't...you don't know what this..."

He took a deep, shuddering breath and started to confess, "I was so afraid..."

He cut himself off quickly, completely stunned by what he almost admitted. He was so overwrought by the whole experience that he almost vocalized his deepest remaining fear: that he would forget what she looked like. He had once told Beth that he wasn't afraid of anything, but it was a lie and they had both known it. He was afraid of many things (most of which related to her) and that particular thought had terrified him. He'd been petrified by the idea that, over time, her image would fade in his mind. That, in the months and years to come, he'd slowly lose the details. Stop being able to recall the exactly color of her hair, the shade of her eyes, the precise shape of her lips, her brow.

He'd lose her all over again.

(Or, worse, his mind would fill in the gaps as they happened, altering her appearance gradually, changing her into something she wasn't, and he wouldn't even know it. Wouldn't realize he was remembering her wrong. He would corrupt her in death, just like he always feared he would have in life.)

But that wouldn't happen now. That _couldn't_ happen now. Glenn had spared him that fear and that fate. He had given him a piece of Beth back and a small measure of actual _peace_. Calmed one of the storming parts of himself he thought would rage forever. And as he processed that idea, he realized that his problem wasn't that he _couldn't_ find the words to express his gratitude for that, it was that there _were_ no words to express his gratitude for that. There were no words for what his friend had done for him.

So, in a move that shocked them both, he took a large step forward and pulled Glenn into a brief, but fierce, embrace.

"Thank you," he said quietly, voice rough with emotion, before releasing Glenn and stepping back. He wiped the last of the tears from his eyes, regarded the photo one more time, and carefully slipped it into his breast pocket.

"She would have wanted you to have it," Glenn repeated easily, betraying no sense of awkwardness over Daryl's emotional reaction or his rare display of physical affection. He added sincerely, "I'm just glad it was mine to give."

It occurred to Daryl suddenly that maybe that wasn't true. Maybe it wasn't really _Glenn's_ to give at all. What would _Maggie_ think? How would she feel about her husband giving away this memento of her? He didn't want to ask, because he didn't think he could live with returning the picture. But he also didn't think he could live with knowing that his possession of it hurt Maggie. That it caused pain to someone Beth had loved so much. He couldn't let himself be that selfish.

 _She_ would never be that selfish.

"What's Maggie gonna say?," he asked reluctantly, casting his eyes back towards his friend.

"About what?" Glenn replied with mild confusion, oblivious to Daryl's thought process.

"What's Maggie gonna say about you givin' this to me?," he clarified.

"Oh," Glenn said, realization dawning. "She thought it was a great idea," he answered with a smile. "She agreed with me. Thought Beth would want you to have it."

"You talked to her already?" Daryl asked incredulously, convinced he hadn't really heard that right. That that couldn't have been Maggie's reaction. That it must have been Glenn's belief, or hope, about what her response _would be_. Not a retelling of what it _was_

"Yeah, dude," Glenn replied with a small laugh. "I'm a good friend, but I'm not suicidal. Believe it or not, I'm actually halfway decent at the whole husband thing. And, take it from me, just in case you were wondering, the fact that you even _asked_ that question proves that you..." He stopped himself abruptly. His tone had been light, but it seemed like he was about to say something he'd regret.

Daryl figured he should probably let it go, but couldn't keep himself from asking, "What?"

"Nothing," Glenn answered quickly, clearly a little uncomfortable. He shook his head slightly and shuffled his feet, adding with false breeziness, "It was nothing."

"C'mon, just say it," Daryl prodded. "Don't be all coy." He crossed his arms and tried to stare Glenn down for a response, though he wasn't exactly sure why he was pushing the issue.

Glenn took a deep breath and released it in a loud, almost exaggerated, sigh. Breaking eye contact in defeat, he finished his thought, speaking with reluctance, but quiet conviction, "I was just gonna say that you would have been pretty good at it, too. The husband thing."

"You really would have, Daryl," he repeated after a few beats, his voice stronger and his reservation gone. He looked him straight in the eye and added, "If that's what you wanted, you would have been good at it. You would have taken good care of her."

Daryl had thought he'd reached his emotional limit when he asked about Maggie's opinion on the gift. Thought he really couldn't feel much more than he was feeling already. But Glenn's words touched him even further. He couldn't believe that Maggie wanted him to have the picture. That she - the person who knew Beth better and longer than anyone - thought it should be his. Thought that's what _Beth_ would want. And he was moved beyond understanding to hear a man like Glenn tell him he would have been a good husband. A good husband to _his_ sister-in-law. A good husband to _Beth_. In his mind, it was the highest praise he could have ever been given, given by a man who could offer it with true meaning. With real weight behind the words. Because Glenn knew him, and he'd known Beth, and he knew what it took to love a good woman well in a terrible world.

A large part of him screamed that it was a lie, of course. That if he could have taken good care of her, she'd still be alive. She wouldn't have been kidnapped. She wouldn't have been killed. But even if he couldn't believe it, he knew that _Glenn_ believed it. Knew that he was being sincere in his praise. Knew that this good man, this good husband, looked at him and saw something kindred. And that affected him deeply all the same.

(Because, if nothing else, the comment - just like the gift itself - felt like a validation of Daryl's feelings. Here was an outside observer behaving as if the love he often felt so unworthy of harboring was completely acceptable. Even _respectable_. And that was confirmation he desperately needed. Because before he could worry about loving Beth well, he had to believe he had the right to love her at all, and there were a lot of times when he questioned that. Times he felt dirty or perverse or just plain pathetic for feeling the way he did. Arrogant and stupid for dreaming of something he didn't deserve. And, though all that self-doubt and self-hatred would still linger, Glenn had just given his feelings a small, but valued, sense of legitimacy. Told him through his actions and his words that it was alright. It wasn't wrong to love her. It was such a simple message, but it, too, meant so much.)

"Fuck," Daryl sighed heavily, once again at a complete loss for words. He rubbed his face firmly with his palms in an effort to compose himself and forced back newly threatening tears. "Is this _Make Daryl Cry Like A Fuckin' Baby Day_ or some shit?," he tried to joke, needing some relief from the heavy atmosphere in the tower. "Christ, I'm worse than Asskicker."

Glenn laughed more than the weak attempt at humor warranted, obviously willing to play his part in lightening the mood. "Yeah, you found me out, man. Just wanted to make you cry," he said teasingly. "I thought about just kicking you in the balls, but I figured this would be better. Still got my thrills, but you got something out of it, too. More of a win-win."

"Was I wrong?" he asked, voice full of mock sincerity. "Because I can go back to Plan A if you want."

"No, you were right," Daryl agreed with a small grin, grateful for the forced levity. "This was better than a kick in the balls." He laughed lightly and shook his head, "Thought I might try to find a nicer way of puttin' it than that, but it sounds 'bout right. Sounds more like me..."

He put his hand over his breast pocket, resting on top of the photo now residing there, and repeated in a highly exaggerated version of his Georgian drawl, "' _Preciate th' picture. 'S bettah than a kick in th' bawls._ "

Glenn chuckled, the pretend response such a contrast to the real one he just witnessed. "That's what I'll tell Maggie when she asks about your reaction," he joked back. "I'll tell her you just shrugged and said it was better than a nut shot. She'll love that."

Daryl let out a small, but genuine, laugh. Mostly just at the idea of Glenn trying to lie to Maggie (or anyone else for that matter) about anything, even in jest. "Doubt she'll love it," he responded, "but I bet she'll believe it. Woman knows I got a way with words."

"Yeah," Glenn agreed with a grin. "You're a poet."

Before Daryl could respond to to the tease, his attention was caught by movement in his peripheral vision. A lone walker had stumbled out of the woods and was slowly shuffling towards the wall. Reaching for the crossbow that had been abandoned at his feet, he loaded a bolt and shot it straight into the creature's skull.

After the walker fell, lifeless for a final time, he lowered his bow and took a steadying breath, unsure how to resume the conversation after the interruption. Whatever lightness they had tried to forced into the atmosphere had dissipated with the creature's appearance and Daryl felt the full weight of the moment return. In a gesture that would soon become second nature, he unconsciously reached up and touched his breast pocket again, finding comfort in the feel of the picture beneath the fabric. He pressed his palm firmly against his chest and took a deep breath, as if he could fuse the image to his body by pressure alone. Like if he just applied enough force he could absorb Beth straight through his skin. As soon as he realized what he was doing, he dropped his hand immediately, feeling like the action was far too personal, too private, to do in company.

Glenn watched the small internal drama unfold, of course, and could easily read the shifting mood of the room. Letting his friend of the hook, he took his cue to exit and breezily announced his departure. "Should let you get back to it," he said, throwing a small wave to the surrounding woods. He turned around and opened the door without giving Daryl a chance to speak. But, before he left, he looked back and asked with genuine interest, "You want come over for dinner tonight?"

No, Daryl thought, I really don't.

When his shift was over, he just wanted to go back to his room and stare at Beth's face for the next year. Or two. Maybe then he could take a break for dinner.

Maybe.

Glenn could see his reluctance and, once again, spared him the verbal struggle. He threw up a hand as if to stop Daryl from speaking, though they both knew that no words were imminent, and said, "Listen, you don't have to answer right now. Just think about it. If you're in the mood, swing by. No big deal."

"If it helps, we're probably gonna have some of Carol's casserole," he added with a smile. "And Maggie's been permanently banned from the kitchen after the creamed corn incident, so worse comes to worse, I'll be cooking. You'll be safe."

Daryl let out a small laugh at the assurance, remembering that meal (and it's aftermath) all too vividly. "Yeah," he responded noncommittally, running his hand across the back of his neck. "I'll think about it. Thanks."

And he meant it. The last part anyway. He didn't want to go, and probably wouldn't even think about it, but he did appreciate the invitation. Appreciated the sincerity behind it. at least

"Cool," Glenn said cheerfully and then left the tower without further comment, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Daryl's hand was back on his chest, pressing the photo in his pocket, before the first footstep echoed down the stairway. As before, it was a gesture of pure reflex. Like his hand had been drawn by some invisible magnet: it's movement completely outside of his will or control. This time, however, when he realized what he was doing, he didn't stop. He savored the feeling. He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, and tried to focus all of his attention on the small area between his palm and his heart. Tried to concentrate all of his awareness, his entire sense of self, on that single spot.

The only spot in the world where they were together.

Part of him wanted to let the moment linger. To just enjoy the comforting presence of the picture and appreciate the warmth and relief that came from its mere existence. But a larger part of him couldn't be satisfied with such an abstract connection. So, even though he was on watch and should technically be paying attention, it was less than a minute before he broke down and took the photo out again.

He spotted the walker when he was talking to Glenn, he reasoned. He'd notice another one if it came along, too.

The first time he saw the picture, he was assailed by every emotion imaginable. But, when he looked at it this time, one feeling rose above them all: grief. Sheer, blinding grief. The photo just underscored a loss that was already inconceivable to him. He couldn't understand how everything Beth was - everything this sweet, funny, kind, stubborn, strong, loving, hopeful, maddening, amazing girl was - could be reduced down to one square inch of plastic. That entire life, that incredible soul, and this was all there was left of it. He was holding it in his hand. One picture and it wasn't even really of her. She just happened to be there. The only woman he'd ever loved (and the only one he could ever _imagine_ loving) was nothing more than a background player in another woman's portrait.

In a perverse way, it almost felt worse than when there was nothing. Nothing could be almost magical. Like she left no trace on the world because she was simply too good for it. Like she was an enchanted pixie that came and worked her wonders and disappeared once her good deeds were through. He had never really considered that before. Had never considered the strange beauty of the nothing. Had only seen the gaping absence of it. But now that the _nothing_ was gone, all he could see was the stunning inadequacy of the _something_ that took its place. How could this be all there was? How could this be it? How could _this_ be it?

It wasn't enough.

It just wasn't enough.

And he knew what he was going to do. In an instant, every argument he'd made to himself for the past few months was negated, and his path was blindingly clear: he was going back to Senoia. He was going back to the Greene family farm. He was going to go to Beth's room, find her things, and surround himself with her in every way that he could. He wasn't going to let this picture be the only thing there was left. He wasn't going to let her things rot away unappreciated in a dilapidated farm house. Wasn't going to let them go uncared for, unloved.

He had long wondered whether such a trip would help him heal or if would just deepen the wound, but now he had his answer: it would do both. The picture brought him a kind of happiness he hadn't felt since her death. The kind of happiness - no matter how brief - that he thought he'd never feel again. And it also brought a new level of pain: accentuated a loss that was already standing in such viciously sharp relief. Her home would do the same, he realized. It would bring him both joy and sorrow. It would be wonderful and it would be horrible. He'd want to die all over again, but he'd feel alive in the process.

He'd feel alive.

He'd been a ghost for too long. Dying for too long. And that picture, even with all the grief it brought with it, had made him feel alive for the first time since Beth's death. Allowed him to take his first real breath, make his first true smile. And, yes, it made him cry like a baby. And, yes, it was tearing his heart out every second he stared at it. But he felt something other than death, something other than pure emptiness, and he couldn't give up the chance to feel that again.

He didn't want to be a ghost any more.

He knew people would argue that making a pilgrimage to the abandoned childhood home of the dead girl you loved but never told probably wasn't the healthiest road back to the realm of the living, but it didn't matter. Healthy or not, it was the only road for him. He knew it wouldn't fix him. Knew he'd always be broken without her. But it would be something.

It would be something other than this.

He wouldn't have to stay, he reasoned. Wouldn't have to abandon his family forever. He'd just go for a little while. A few months maybe. A year if he really enjoyed it. But he'd come back. He'd come back and he'd bring heirlooms for Maggie and Glenn. He'd repay their kindness, their generosity in sharing the photo and their acceptance of his love of Beth, and act like the kind of brother-in-law he wished he had had the chance to be. He'd do it for Beth. And he'd do it for Herschel, too. He'd do something for the remaining members of the family he liked most of all. The family he most wished he had been a part of. (Because as much as he wanted Beth to be a Dixon, he would have been almost as happy to become a Greene.)

And he'd make them understand. He'd make sure they didn't follow. He had nothing to lose any more, after all. No fear in tipping his hand, in exposing too much, in feeling too vulnerable. They already knew he loved her, already knew what a wreck he was, had already seen him fall apart. It was pretty simple now, actually.

It was _really_ fucking simple now.

"Gonna find out your secrets, girl," he whispered to her picture, imagining her room in his head. He smiled to himself just thinking about it, "Gonna make you blush, wherever you are."

...

Maggie and Glenn were surprised when their invited guest actually showed up for dinner that night. And even more surprised to learn that it would be the last meal they'd be sharing for a while. They thought the plan was insane of course, tried to tell him Beth wouldn't want him to do it, wouldn't want him to risk it, but none of that mattered. The decision was made and it was clear that he couldn't be dissuaded. So, in another act of what Daryl could only label true friendship, they let it go. Didn't fight him on it. They just ate Carol's casserole instead, drank some off-brand vodka pilfered from the latest run, and told jokes about the old prison days. When they parted ways late into the night there were no theatrics, no goodbyes, just well wishes for his safe return and a (deeply appreciated) promise not to stop him.

He left at dawn the next morning, without a word to anyone else.

And as the gate shut behind him and Alexandria disappeared into the distance, he was assailed by a strange feeling. He had been a storm of emotions since he first saw Beth's picture, but this was something different. Something bubbling in his chest, fluttering in his stomach, and it took him a moment to place it.

It was excitement.

He was _excited_.

"We're goin' home, girl!" he shouted above the roar of the engine, the wind carrying his voice beyond his own ears. "Don't you think that's beautiful?!"

* * *

 _So? Boring? Stupid? Passable? (God forbid) enjoyable? I'd be really interested to know. This is the first work of fiction I've ever written and it totally came out of nowhere. I was just reading a piece that I really loved and started typing one of my own because I couldn't sleep the other night. (The one I was reading was "I'll Be Yours for a Song" by DynamicSymmetry. If you haven't read it, do so NOW! Let that be the one good thing that comes from slogging through my story. It's absolutely **nothing**_ _like this, so don't let my writing turn you off!)_

 _Anyway, the whole thing's totally out of character for me and posting it here is even more bizarre, so I'm really curious what to make of it. If you have a moment and are remotely inclined, I'd really love to hear your feedback. And please feel free to tell me it was awful, that's fine. It'd actually be really helpful. Just tell me why. (You have plenty of options to choose from!)_

 _(Oh, and I realize there's a camera in Alexandria. Obviously Glenn can get another picture of Maggie, but I kinda liked the idea of it being a bigger gesture. And, well, I figure I was making a lot of shit up, so why not ignore facts, too? Just for fun.)_

 _Thanks for reading! I hope you don't feel like you totally wasted your time. If you do, go watch the trailer for Season 6 again and you'll feel better. :)_


	2. Chapter 2

I want to thank everyone that read the first chapter of this story, especially those of you who took the time to leave such kind and supportive reviews. I can't tell you how much it meant to me. I always intended this to be a one-shot, but thanks to your encouragement, I've been inspired to continue it as a multi-chapter piece exploring Daryl's journey back to the farm and the discoveries he makes, and the healing that occurs, while he's there.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't a situation where you liked the movie, but hate the sequel. This chapter's a bit different than the first, but I hope it isn't any less enjoyable. (Assuming you thought the first one was enjoyable at all, but you probably wouldn't be reading this if you didn't, right?)

Okay, let's hop on Daryl's bike and hit the road. We're Georgia bound…

* * *

705 miles.

705 miles from Alexandria to Senoia.

Or, at least it would have been in the old world. Back when highways were the free flowing arteries of America: transporting happy families, tired workers, and meaningless consumer goods smoothly from one exit to the next. When the biggest obstacles you could encounter were construction and traffic and, if you saw an accident, you felt a real pang of sadness and hoped that help was on the way.

Back when you could even calculate a distance like that.

Back when you could actually plan a route. When driving wasn't an improvisation. When you weren't constantly navigating around the relics of a civilization destroyed in mid-breath: forever winding your way around overturned buses, burned out trucks, and pile-ups as far as the eye could see. When you weren't trying figure out the next day's detour, which was just another detour in a series of detours, while camped out under a billboard for teeth whitening services and eating raw possum because it's too dangerous to start a fire.

Yeah, back in those days.

In the new world, though, the number was a joke. 705 miles. Daryl didn't know why he even bothered to work it out one night. Didn't know why he tried to calculate the shrinking distance every night after that. Why every time he stopped for the day, he pulled out that damned atlas and started counting. He had found the thing in an upscale SUV while scrounging for gas somewhere on the North Carolina border and it became a strange sort of bible for him. He'd had a basic map when he'd left Alexandria, but the atlas was different. Laminated and spiral bound, full of detail and color, it had felt important the moment he touched it. Felt official somehow. Like he was on a mission and this was the guide. The book that he could turn to for answers to the biggest, most urgent, questions in his life: _How do I get there? How far do I have left to go?_

He knew the numbers were meaningless. He could never truly anticipate the path he'd have to take. He'd plan three options and get stuck taking the fourth, sometimes backtracking and cursing his Merle-level best the entire time. Miles were gained and lost each day and he rarely ended up where he expected to be (and almost never arrived having taken the route he intended to get there.) Still, he couldn't stop himself from doing the math each evening. Couldn't stop himself from trying to quantify the journey that lay ahead. Calculate all the different possibilities.

506 miles if he could stay on I-77.

534 miles if he had to make a bypass around Mooresville.

567 miles if he had to take Route 145.

Divining the numbers was a nightly ritual and chanting them in his head was a daily meditation. They may have been meaningless, but they soothed him. Eased him in a way he didn't understand, but decided just to accept.

He'd always been plagued by compulsive thoughts, after all. Hounded by a constant internal monologue shouting at him, berating him, demanding things from him he could never give. He spent most of his life trapped in endless loops of self-criticism and it wasn't until the end of the world that he really found a way out. Found a way to make the cycle stop, or at least slow down, even if it was just for a little while. And it was only when he fell in love with Beth that he discovered there could be an upside to that kind of thinking: that his mind could be hijacked by good thoughts as well as bad. In her magical little way, she turned a flaw that had always haunted him into an ability that he could treasure. Showed him mental circuits he _wanted_ to get stuck in: happy little paths he'd gladly circle around forever and ever.

But, as with everything else in his world, her death had changed that. It had brought back the worst of his old compulsions: fueled his racing mind with inescapable feelings of failure, hopelessness, and despair. He could still get lost in the good thoughts on occasion. Revel for hours in memories and daydreams. Surrender himself to well-worn fantasies that had long since become familiar, but remained so deeply erotic and enchanting to him. He could still do that, but he couldn't do it _at will_. He couldn't shake the dark thoughts once they came.

And they came more often than not.

So, obsessing over a few numbers actually seemed pretty good to him. Pretty acceptable.

Because Beth wouldn't be worried by it. He came to that conclusion the one time he allowed himself to question his behavior and he never considered the matter again. He knew most of his other thoughts would concern her. Knew that she wouldn't want him to hate himself the way he did, wouldn't want him to blame himself the way he did, wouldn't want him to torture himself over everything that was and would never be. (That knowledge had no impact on his thinking, of course, except for making him feel even worse for finding yet another way to fail her. Yet another way to disappoint.) But he was fairly confident she wouldn't be bothered by his mileage counts. She might think they were an odd fascination, might question why he spent so much time figuring them out, but she wouldn't be upset by them. She'd see them as a quirk, not a concern, and that was enough for him.

It was pointless, but it was harmless.

And harmless was saying a lot those days.

The futility of the act couldn't be understated, though, and Daryl was unsurprised when 705 miles came and went and he was still hundreds of miles from home. (He wasn't sure when it went from being "Herschel's farm" to "Beth's house", but it became "home" the moment he left Alexandria.) He had settled for the night in a muffler shop that looked like it had been a disaster long before the turn and only dimly noted the theoretical milestone. He was too focused on his piercing hunger to think about such an empty occasion. He hadn't eaten since the previous morning and the only food he had left was a small can of fruit cocktail. He'd found it in a lunch box on the side of the road a few days into the trip and had been carting it around with him ever since. It wasn't much, but that wasn't the issue. That wasn't why he held it in his hand for over a half an hour, contemplating it while his stomach growled. The problem wasn't with how little there was or how little there might be in the future. The problem wasn't that he didn't like it or that it was expired or questionable in some way.

The problem was that _Beth_ had loved it.

Beth Greene had fucking _loved_ fruit cocktail.

And it had felt like a sign when he found it that day.

He had been riding since dawn and was enjoying the easiest stretch of road he'd encountered since his journey began. Cars littered the highway, but he was able to maneuver around them without even slowing down. He was making great time and the weather was beautiful: flawless and warm and simply _invigorating_. It was the kind of day that made him love his bike all over again. Made him relish the freedom it provided. The agility. Made him grateful for how it exposed him to the elements. For how he could feel the wind and the sun and the sheer _momentum_ of it all.

He'd felt alive that day.

Alive in a way he'd only just started being able to experience again. In a way he'd thought was lost to him forever. In a way he valued like he never had before.

He had pulled over to the side of the highway to smoke a cigarette and look at Beth's picture. He was feeling good and he knew, if she were there, she'd be feeling good, too. And he'd wanted to share that with her. He'd wanted to share that gorgeous day with her in whatever way he could. (He'd always look at her picture whenever he took a break, of course, good day or bad; but that particular afternoon, he'd done it with that specific thought in mind. For once, it wasn't because _he_ wanted to see _her_ , it was because he wanted _her_ to see _that_. Wanted her to see this brilliant day that would have made her hair shine and her skin glow and put a spring in her far-too-loud steps. A day made just for her. It was a strange thought and it had briefly unsettled him. Had made him worry, and not for the first time, about the relationship he'd formed with this object. Made him question his fixation with this small piece of plastic that had come to be _Beth_ to him. But, as was so often the case, he didn't know what to do about that. Had no idea how he could possibly change it or if he should even try. And, at the end of the day, he found it hard to care too much. Crazy or not, it made him feel better. Or, it made him feel _something_ , at least. And he really didn't want to stop that, so he just ignored voice of concern in his head - a voice that sometimes sounded suspiciously like Beth - and continued along with it anyway.)

He was halfway through his smoke - and deep into a daydream about a picnic of pickled pigs feet and moonshine - when a bird call drew his attention to the tree line behind him. He scanned for a threat and that's when he spotted the bright blue lunch box, laying half-open in the overgrown grass about ten feet off the shoulder. It shouldn't have aroused his curiosity. The whole world was littered with detritus those days, there was nothing unique about seeing random objects in random places, but for some reason he felt compelled to investigate it anyway. It was a lunch box, after all, maybe there was food inside. He didn't really think that, though. Didn't really know why he walked over there and checked it out. He just did.

And when he saw the fruit cocktail, he'd started to cry.

Actually fucking _cry_.

He'd wanted her to be with him so badly that day and, suddenly, it felt like she was.

Because, as odd as it seems, Daryl never knew how much he loved Beth until he knew how much she loved fruit cocktail.

He remembered with aching delight watching her glee when she'd discovered a few cans of the stuff in an old cabin they were raiding one morning. She'd been through a hellish week up until that point. Pretty much the most brutal week a person could experience, though he didn't really give her credit for it at the time. He was too caught up in his own losses to truly consider hers. But, acknowledged or not, she was living a nightmare. She'd watched her father get decapitated, been separated from her sister and the child she'd practically raised, been cast out of her home, and the only person left in her life spent most of his time ignoring her. Or insulting her. Or, worse of all, manhandling her when he couldn't process his own pain. (That was the one that haunted Daryl the most. The one he could still feel in his fucking _bones_.) Yes, Beth had been through the worst week a person could imagine, but when she found that fruit cocktail, she'd rallied like a goddamn hero. Seized upon that small pleasure, that unexpected little gift, and elevated it to the thrill of a lifetime.

And it had been _stunning_ to witness.

It had been the first time he'd seen her give a genuine, fully sober, honest-to-God smile after the prison fell. The first time she'd really _beamed_ again. Radiated like she was always supposed to. And he'd been completely caught off guard by how good that had made him feel. By how relieved he'd been to see her transformation. He hadn't realized how important her happiness was to him until he saw it return. Until he experienced that wonderful instant when her blank expression was replaced by one of pure joy and he knew he wanted to see that look on her face every day. Wanted to be the one to put it there. Wanted to give her all the fucking fruit cocktail in the goddamn world if it would make her smile like that. Carry it to her by the bucketful and let her bathe in the shit if it tickled her fancy.

He'd had no idea he felt that way before that moment.

And he had no idea how _not_ to feel that way after it.

His fate had been sealed by a dearly-departed fruit hoarder. One well-stocked pantry and he was done for.

So, if the atlas was his bible, the fruit cocktail was his talisman: a tin full of magic he didn't want to open. A little piece of Beth's joy preserved in a can, locked away for all time. It was something far too precious to simply consume. Too important to be treated as mere food.

120 calories.

0 grams of protein.

He stuck with his current theme and focused on the numbers. Let them make his decision (a decision he knew wasn't really a decision at all.) He felt ridiculous treating a can of fruit like a religious artifact and he knew Beth would think it was ridiculous, too. He knew she'd want him to eat it. Would tell him that the good people of Del Monte weren't sorcerers. That they didn't trap her spirit in a can. That her spirit was everywhere and it really didn't want him to go hungry. It wanted him to keep his energy up. Wanted him to taste something sweet, too, while he's at it. Wanted him to enjoy himself. Wanted him to have something good.

Because that's who she was and that's how she thought.

But it was 120 lousy calories and no protein, he reasoned. Just a few tablespoons of ancient sugar and a little red food coloring. It wouldn't make a dent in his hunger, would do nothing to really sustain him, so he just put it back in his bag and started consulting the atlas again.

She wouldn't like it, but she'd understand.

And he'd go hunting in the morning.

Until then, he'd just work on the mileage some more. Get lost in the arithmetic the way he never could have in school. (He laughed to himself when he realized that he probably could have been a really good student if he'd had the right motivation. He'd always struggled with math as a kid, especially those bedeviling word problems: the ones where there's a train going from one place to another and you have to figure out its speed or whatever. He never understood the numbers and, even at a young age, was weirdly resentful of the make-believe passengers and their jaunty little trips to Chicago or New York. But in the muffler shop that night, it occurred to him that if Beth had been on one of those trains, he'd be able to tell you exactly how fast it was going and the distance it had travelled. He'd be able to calculate how far it had left to go and the fuel it'd need to get there, too. Fuck, he could figure out how much paint it would take to spray it her favorite color if she wanted. He could do a lot of things he never thought he could do once Beth Greene entered the equation.)

When he worked out that day's figures, he found himself in a newly familiar dilemma. It was the kind of quandary he'd never experienced before this trip, but one he was finding himself facing with increasing frequency. It was a problem rooted in some sort of superstition, or maybe a warped spirituality, or something else he couldn't quite name. Something that was making him see meaning in things he would have always dismissed before, if he even noticed them at all. Something that made him look at an atlas and a photo and a can of fruit cocktail and see them as the holy trinity of his own personal church. He had never been a religious man and he still wasn't. He was baffled by these feelings, but he was compelled by them nevertheless.

They spoke to him in ways he had to listen to. In ways he couldn't ignore.

And this time they were speaking to him through the numbers. He could take four possible routes when he set out the next day and the distances they promised varied widely: 223 miles, 275 miles, 297 miles, and 314 miles. Almost a hundred mile difference between the most and least direct way home. It shouldn't have even been a question. He knew he should take the shortest route and, if he was still the man he had been for almost his entire life, the only man he actually recognized, he wouldn't have even considered the alternatives. But he wasn't that man any more. He didn't know who he was, didn't know why he was thinking in these new ways, but he did know one thing: Beth's birthday was March 14th.

3/14.

And so, even though he told himself he was being insane, he barely even tried to talk himself out of choosing the longest path. 314 miles. That was the number; that was the way. He went through a little internal argument, just to feel normal, just to feel like he did it, but he knew he was going to choose 314 the moment he figured it out. It was just like two days ago, when he added ten miles to his journey so he could go through Greeneville instead of Durnstown. Or like the day before that when he spent hours picking his way through a seemingly endless pile-up so he didn't have to take the exit to Williamsburg, because William was his father's name and he didn't want to taint his pilgrimage with anything that reminded him of Will Dixon.

Or, the most upsetting one of all, when he had to avoid Route 162, because it had been 162 days since she'd died and he'd just wanted to rip the sign off the post, burn the whole road to hell, and never see that fucking number again.

He wasn't quite sure what Beth would think about all that. If it would still fall under the category of quirky and eccentric. Or if she'd see it as some bizarre sort of faith. Maybe even something beautiful in its own twisted way. (Not beautiful like her. Beautiful like a dolled-up walker tucked away in the basement of an eerily clean funeral home. Distorted and haunting, but maybe still a little beautiful nevertheless.) Or perhaps she'd see it as something else entirely. See it as a kind of sickness. A sign of his dwindling stability. She might be worried by it. She might be worried for _him_.

He really didn't know. And it killed him that he didn't. Not because the knowledge really mattered that much, it wouldn't have changed anything about his behavior, but it hurt every time he was reminded of the all the things he didn't know about her. Every time he was confronted with the fact that so much of her mind was still, and would always be, a mystery to him. He didn't ask her all the things he should have asked her when she was alive. He didn't delve into her heart and soul the way that he should have. He spent far too long denying what was right in front of him, tied himself up in knots of self-criticism and cowardice once he finally accepted the truth, and then ran out of time before he could do anything about it.

He ran out of time.

The things he never asked could never be asked.

The things he never said could never be said.

He just ran out of fucking _time_.

But there were still some things he _could_ learn, he told himself. New facts about her, new facets to her, that he would discover when he finally got to Senoia. There would be some answers there and he'd hunt down every single one. It wouldn't be enough. Nothing could ever be enough. Nothing could ever make up for the days he wasted and the days he was denied. But it would be something more than he had now and he took comfort in that thought. Let it calm him as he tried to fall asleep on the shop's cold concrete floor: curled up in a ball with Beth's picture in his hand, a vicious pain in his stomach, and the number 314 echoing in the distance.

….

It took him another week, and far more than 314 miles, to get to the Greene family farm. The trip dragged on for some reasons that were unavoidable: slowed down and drawn out because of wreckage and walkers and other post-apocalyptic inevitabilities. It was still far longer than it needed to be, though, having been stretched out every day by Daryl's unique new brand of decision-making. He took a five hour detour one morning so he could drive by Amber Lake, because he remembered Beth admiring an amber bracelet on some dead woman's dresser one time and wouldn't she have liked to see a lake? He wasted another hour looking for a walker to kill so he could smear its blood over a sign noting the upcoming exit for Grady Avenue, because he just couldn't stand to see that word. _Grady_. He had to wipe it from existence and cover it in the gore it deserved. He took the 187 mile route instead of the 123 mile one, because his mother had died on January 23rd and she was the only other woman he had ever loved. And, at the very end, he spent two extra hours approaching Senoia from the backroads because didn't want to drive on the highway where they lost Sophia. He couldn't stand to be reminded of another girl who had disappeared, another girl he had failed.

He'd made a lot of superstitious and sentimental calls and he didn't know why they meant so much to him. He had no idea why any of these things seemed to matter, but they did. They mattered _so much_ and, even though he didn't understand it, even though it worried him at times, he was thankful for it. He was grateful to feel like _anything_ mattered. Relieved to care about _anything_ again, even if it was something as absurd as the name of a street or the order of the cars he tried to siphon gas from (green ones first, for obvious reasons, red ones last, because they reminded him of her blood.) The cold and logical part of his mind told him he was being delusional, mocked him for acting insane, for succumbing so easily to the stress of solitude and grief. But the battered and starving parts of his soul were just happy to be engaged with the world again. To be touched by something, compelled by something, _drawn_ to something.

And, on this trip at least, his soul was winning out.

And it worked. Or it didn't hurt. He wasn't sure which. Sometimes he thought he was just wasting his time, wasting his gas, risking his safety by taking pointless actions and spending too much time in the unprotected open. But more often than not, and more and more every day, he thought these strange things were _exactly_ what he had to do to stay safe. That these impulses, crazy as they may seem, were leading him along the only path he could travel. Showing him the path he _had_ to take. The way the journey _had_ to be. As with everything else, he was unsure of what that guiding force might be, though. Whose hand was at work. Who was pulling those strings. In his better moments, he felt like it was Beth. At other times, he thought it might be Fate. He very rarely, and very fleetingly, considered it might be God. But whenever he imagined that, it seemed like the kind of thing Beth would say, and that just made him go back to believing it was her instead.

Needless or necessary, all those decisions got him there in the end, though.

They all brought him home.

As soon as he saw the farm on the horizon, he pulled over and switched off the bike's engine. He'd been travelling for weeks, and fantasizing about the journey for even longer, but he still wasn't quite ready to be there. He felt like he needed a moment to steady his nerves and steel himself for what he was about to encounter. He took out one his last remaining cigarettes and smoked it slowly while he tried to visualize everything that happened that final night. Tried to remember the charge of the herd, the mad scramble of their people, and imagine the destruction that must have been left in its wake. The farm had come to symbolize Beth so strongly in his mind that he knew it was going to hurt to see it in tatters. It was going to be painful to see that beautiful home broken. To see that beautiful home, that housed a beautiful family, that raised the most beautiful daughter he could ever hope to know, reduced to anything less than its rightful glory.

It was going to cut him and needed to be ready for that.

Despite his efforts, though, he wasn't really prepared when he finally approached the house. He'd been expecting damage and there definitely was plenty of that. The barn had been burned to the ground and the blackened shell of Dale's RV stood parked for eternity aside the remains, maintaining a sad sort of vigil over the pile of scorched wood and ash. The barbed wire fences all along the property were either sagging or mangled entirely and a few unfortunate walkers were caught up in the shambles. A large branch had fallen from one of the trees nearest the house, probably in some bygone thunderstorm, and lay perched precariously on the roof.

There was damage all over the place.

But that wasn't what got to Daryl. It wasn't the damage, it was the _neglect_. The whole atmosphere felt heavy with abandonment. He swore he could actually feel the Greenes' absence. He could certainly see it: the evidence of their desertion was everywhere. Fields that had been well-tended were wild and overgrown and once-prized flowerbeds were thriving weed gardens. The few vehicles they had left behind were covered in thick layers of dust, rotted leaves, and petrified bird shit. Gutters overflowed with debris and drooped from the eaves under the burden of the forgotten years. And all the doors he could see were thrown wide open, as if the house had simply surrendered itself to the elements. It didn't belong to anyone anymore, so it was inviting Mother Nature inside and offering her a place to stay.

In what he would have normally considered an inane flight of fancy - but had now become a familiar form of magical thinking - he saw those open doors as an odd, but fitting, display of hospitality. As if the generosity of the family that had once lived there had worked its way into the bones of the building and the house was manifesting that kindness in the only way that it could. It was turning itself over to the needs of the world and asking nothing in return. Just like a Greene. And he imagined that he was a part of that world: that he was included in that warm invitation. The house wasn't just surrendering itself to nature, he thought. It was surrendering itself to him, too.

Those doors were open in anticipation of his arrival.

The house was welcoming him home.

And when he thought about it like that, the dilapidation and disrepair seemed perfect. Seemed right. Like the house hadn't just opened itself up to him, it had _prepared_ itself for him. He'd told Beth once that he was used to the world being ugly. He had grown up, and later languished, in a series of dirty, run-down homes filled with useless, broken things (and useless, broken people.) A pristine ancestral farmhouse, shaped by generations of proud hands and filled with lifetimes of loving memories, was as unnatural to him as a walker. He'd completely forgotten, but suddenly remembered quite vividly, how uncomfortable he'd been in that house before it all went to hell. At the time he'd attributed it to his general uneasiness around new people and, later on, to his broader discomfort with being injured and vulnerable. But, more than anything, it was really because he'd felt like he didn't belong somewhere that nice, someplace that well-cared for. Felt like he was too grimy and too gritty and just too _polluted_ to be there.

Like he would contaminate it.

But, looking at the home's diminished condition, he didn't feel that way anymore. They'd both changed and now they met in the middle. Or near the middle, at least. Maybe they weren't true equals - he still probably wasn't good enough for that house - but they had gotten closer. That once gaping chasm between what it offered and what he deserved had narrowed. He'd become a better man since the last time he was there and the house had withered to a faded beauty. They suited each other now, more or less. He was still rough and unkempt and ill-mannered, but he wasn't going to ruin anything.

He was actually going to make it better.

He realized he was now in a position to improve something he'd always assumed he'd taint. He could take that branch off the roof, fix the fences, gather up and burn all the fallen walkers. Hell, he could even clean the gutters if he started feeling all domestic. If he really wanted to play homeowner. He could leave this place better than he found it, he thought, and he discovered that he loved that idea.

He fucking _loved_ that idea.

In all the months he had thought about returning, he'd only thought about what the farm could do for him. He never even considered what he could do for it. Never imagined that the peculiar, and somewhat disturbing, relationship he'd formed with the property could be reciprocal in any way.

He put his hand over his heart, palm covering Beth's picture where it lay in his breast pocket, and smiled.

Really _smiled_.

Smiled in a way he hadn't since he'd finally stopped crying after finding that fucking fruit cocktail.

Because, just like that day with the lunch box, it felt like Beth was there. Like she'd known exactly what he'd need to feel welcome in her home and she'd made it happen. Like she was the one whispering that he was worthy of it now. And, most importantly, like she was the one showing him what he could give in return. Because that was just so _her._ It was so like her to see what was needed and have the impulse to help. To point out all the good that could still be done no matter how bad things seemed. To recognize the potential in a situation and, even more remarkably, to recognize the potential in _him_.

"You're somethin' else, girl," he said under his breath, laughing lightly. "You fuckin' know that?"

He wanted to take out her picture instead of just cradling to his chest, wanted to see her face back on the farm, but he needed to clear the house first. He looked at the photo all the time, in all kinds of situations, but it was generally an act of escapism - a prelude to daydreams - and it really wasn't the time to get lost in that. Not without securing everything first. So, he dropped his hand with a sigh and climbed off the bike. He'd been on the thing for hours and he took a moment to stretch and find his legs again. He reached for his crossbow and readied the weapon in moves that were so well-practiced, they required no conscious thought at all.

"Alright, sweetheart," he said softly, not realizing it was the first time he'd actually vocalized the endearment he used so frequently in his head. "Let's see what we got."

He had his bow raised and his senses at full attention, but given the open doors and the general aura of abandonment, he didn't really expect to find anything waiting for him inside. He strolled confidently over to the front porch and was about to bound up the steps when he saw a series of heavy, muddy footprints going up the stairs and right into the house. Large prints from a man's boot following the kind of precise path that only the truly living can manage. They weren't made by a walker. And they weren't made by anyone he knew. It hadn't rained for weeks before the herd came and, even if it had, the Greenes had taken pride in their home. It might have been the end of the world, but they would have never overlooked that kind of mess. To the best of his reckoning, it hadn't rained any time recently either, though, so the prints still had to be _relatively_ old. It was a dry time of year and that level of mud just wasn't in season. So, even though the discovery got his blood pumping a little faster, he came to the quick conclusion that the soiled stranger was probably long gone.

He walked up the stairs, careful not to disturb the prints on the vague notion that he might want to study them again later (though if he really thought about it he'd know there was nothing else he could learn.) When he got to the doorway, he banged his fist hard on the frame to try to draw the attention of any walker that might be lurking inside. As he waited for a reaction, he surveyed what little of the house he could see and noticed that the footprints continued well past the entryway and trailed off into what he was pretty sure was the dining room. A good twenty feet of tracked-in dirt disappearing around a blind corner.

"Fuckin' muddied up your damn floor," he spat out, louder than he'd spoken the entire trip.

He was still trying to rile up the undead, but the real reason he raised his voice was because _he_ was so riled up. He knew it was hypocritical to be upset by the prints. He'd been leaving his own trail of dirt around the South for years. He'd sullied houses and cabins, offices and stores, churches and funeral homes, and every other even _remotely_ habitable place he'd come across since the turn. But seeing that filthy path through the Greene family home still angered him.

It just seemed so disrespectful. So inconsiderate.

"Best pray you ain't here," he shouted into what he hoped was a void, addressing the maker of the prints. "Fuckin' muddied up my girl's floor. Tracked your dirty little ass all through her house."

"Gonna pay for that," he added after a beat, fully meaning the threat though he was almost positive there was no one left to threaten. "Gonna make you clean that fuckin' shit up. Teach you some goddamn _manners._ "

His warning was greeted with expected silence and, after a few more moments passed, he decided that nothing was coming. He'd do a full sweep, of course, but he was sure by then that the place was as empty as it seemed. He stepped inside, bow raised, and started his circuit. He was familiar with most of the rooms on the ground floor and the layout was relatively open, so it didn't take long to ensure that the area was clear.

It also didn't take long to see that the muddy footprints weren't the only thing the mystery houseguest had left behind. When the herd came through that night, they'd evacuated in a hurry, leaving everything as it was. The human storm surrounding them might have been chaos, but the house was still in order. So, it was easy to spot the telltale evidence of the post-apocalyptic squatter: to see the signs of scavenged survival that were scattered all around. There were a couple dozen empty cans lined up in wobbly rows on the kitchen counter, gory hand towels crumpled up in one side of the farmhouse sink, and a collection of squirrel bones piled up in the other. Veterinary textbooks littered the floor of the living room, along with some of (what he presumed to be) Herschel's medical equipment and couple dingy tee-shirts. The couch had a large blood stain dripping down the right armrest, soaking the neighboring cushion, and the love seat that once sat under the window had been repurposed as a barricade against the back door. There were more dirty towels in the guest bathroom and the toilet lid was covered in an unidentifiable dried muck, like someone had rolled around in filth and used it as a chair when they tried to clean up.

All things considered, it wasn't actually that bad, though. Whoever had been there hadn't trashed the place; they'd just lived there and living was messy those days. That was just the way of the world. He knew that, but it didn't mean he wasn't upset by it.

Because he was.

He really, really was.

It angered him for several reasons, most of which he couldn't name, and it really made him worry about what he'd discover when he went upstairs. Made him worry about what might have happened to her room and to her things. Did that filthy footed fuck go through them? Did he rifle around in her drawers? Peer under her bed? Did he fucking _take_ shit from her? Did he see something he wanted, or needed, and help himself?

Did he pilfer from her the way that Daryl, and every other survivor in the world, had been pilfering from the departed for years?

Were some horrible chickens about to come home to roost here?

Daryl was no philosopher, no theologian, but he did know a little bit about karma. Had a pop culture understanding of it, at least. And that was the word that came immediately to mind when he considered the possibility. Came to mind loud and clear in a voice that taunted him and sounded exactly like Merle.

 _Karma, baby brother. Fuckin' karma._

He took a deep breath and unconsciously went to reach for Beth's picture again, only realizing he was doing it because he had the crossbow in his hands and the right one got startled when the left one let go. He sighed at the reminder of his compulsive behavior and returned his full grip to the weapon. Standing at the foot of the stairs, he tried to stop his racing imagination. Tried to tell himself that there was a good chance that everything was fine. What would a grown man want in a teenage girl's bedroom (if he wasn't the grown man that was desperately in love with her)? Why would he want her yearbook or her nice Sunday dress? It didn't really make sense if he thought about it logically. And it didn't look like much had been taken from the downstairs at all. He wasn't really that familiar with the home's contents, so he couldn't be sure what was missing, but he could see plenty of things that would be useful to have. Things a looter would have probably taken if they'd been so inclined. Even that medical equipment on the floor looked like it might be pretty handy if you knew how to use it (or if you were desperate enough to risk being wrong, which was an entirely predictable scenario. Might have even been the scenario that played out there, he noted grimly, remembering the blood stains on the couch.)

No, nothing was going to be disturbed. It was going to be okay. He'd never been one for optimism, never been inclined to hope, but he had to believe in that moment. He had to believe that her room was well-preserved, because the alternative was just too terrible. It was just too awful to think that he could lose any more of her than he already had.

But whatever happened, happened, he reasoned. It wasn't going to change now, so he just had to face it. He had to go up there and find out. He had to see.

After all these months, it was finally time.

So, with a heavy tread, he went upstairs to explore the part of the house that was the biggest mystery to him and the biggest prize on his quest. The part he'd only been in while injured and where he was tended to with the kind of care he'd never received before. The part that was most personal. The part that was for _family._ The part where she slept. The part where she showered and dressed and dreamed.

The part he prayed to a God he didn't believe in was untouched.

He turned right at the top of the stairs and started exploring what he would come to think of as the boy's wing of the house. The side that he learned contained Shawn's room, the guest room he'd recovered in, and the master bedroom that had once been inhabited by Beth's mother but, by the time Daryl had met them, had become Herschel's alone. And it was a promising start. The space had definitely been investigated, but - as with the downstairs - it hadn't been ransacked. In Herschel's room, the closet doors were open and the dresser drawers were all slightly ajar, like they'd been inspected and shut dutifully, but without particular care. The bed was unmade, which might have been how he left it, but the bottoms of the sheets were spotted with caked-in mud, which pointed to a different culprit entirely. The dirty little drifter had slept there, probably with his boots on. There were a few grungy shits and a pair of pants filthier than even Daryl had ever owned on the floor in Shawn's room, as well as a notable amount of empty hangers in the closest. He figured maybe the stranger was more Shawn's size. (He'd seen a picture of the kid and knew he was tall and lean, which Herschel definitely wasn't.) It didn't really matter though and, after his cursory examination, he moved on.

When he got to the guest room, he paused and took a deep, almost gasping, breath. He was overcome by a wave of emotion when he saw the bed he'd laid in so long ago. The bed where a beautiful young girl he barely noticed brought him food and medicine and shy, but warm, smiles. The bed where he was looked after and nurtured when he needed it, even though he didn't want it. The bed where Carol told him he was a good man. As good a man as Rick. And he had to smile when he remembered that, because it had felt like such a lie at the time, but - years later - that girl he barely noticed made him believe it could be true. For all too brief, but impossibly treasured, period of time, Beth made him believe he was a good man. Made him believe he could be an even better man, too, if he tried.

And she'd made him _want_ to try.

Was _still_ making him want to try.

That overlooked nurse became the love of his life and he was once again mystified by how he could have possibly missed it at the time. His rational mind could list a dozen reasons why it took him so long to see her for who she really was, her age being first among them, but his heart was still baffled by it. He couldn't understand how he could have spent so long with her – spent months and months with her - before he even really regarded her at all. And how he could have spent months and months after that not fully appreciating what he'd discovered. His love for her, his amazement _by_ her, was so obvious to him now that he couldn't fathom how that wasn't always the case.

Hadn't his heart been stamped with _Property of Beth Greene_ since the day he was born?

He'd asked himself those questions too many times to count and they always crushed him. It killed him to think of all those lost days and missed conversations. All those unobserved actions and unseen smiles. They formed a big chapter in _Daryl's Book of Regrets about Beth_ : one he'd read and agonized over many, many, times. But staring at that bed that day, he wasn't feeling depressed. Those thoughts weren't upsetting him. They weren't filling him with that familiar bitterness and remorse.

He wasn't angry this time.

He was in _awe_.

He was overwhelmed by a sense of sheer wonder at the twists and turns of life. A few years ago, an overeager hunter accidentally shot a kid, brought him to this very bed to recover, and set in motion a series of events that would change Daryl's life for the better in ways he could have never imagined. In ways it took him ages to even understand (in ways he was _still_ trying to understand.) The last time he was here, he'd already met the people who'd become the best family he'd ever known and the woman who'd capture his soul. And he'd had absolutely no idea at all. He'd taken an arrow to the gut and a bullet to the head and thought that life was shit and would only get shittier. He thought nothing good would ever happen to him, but he couldn't have been more wrong. Good things - the _best_ of things - were _already_ happening to him. He just didn't see it then. And that didn't seem sad to him in that moment: it seemed magical.

It seemed beautiful.

It _was_ beautiful.

And he knew exactly where he'd be sleeping that night.

He tore himself away from his reflections and started exploring the rest of the floor with a renewed sense of excitement. Beth's room was still calling him and, if seeing that bed had made him feel that good, he couldn't wait to find out what finally laying eyes on her space would do. The first room he encountered was Maggie's and he was instantly, and incredibly, relieved when he realized that. He hadn't wanted to acknowledge it, but he'd been afraid that he wouldn't be able to identify Beth's room right away. They were both young women, with identical backgrounds, and he was worried that he might - if only for a moment - be wrong about which room belonged to which sister. He'd known he'd inevitably (and easily) find out the truth, but he didn't want it to even be a question. He'd wanted to know it instinctively.

He wanted to believe he knew her that well.

He _needed_ to believe he knew her that well.

So, it felt like a burden had been lifted when he recognized the room as Maggie's, particularly because there was no immediate identifier pointing to that fact, just an obvious sense that the place looked like her. As with the other rooms, Maggie's things had been rifled through, but there was no major disturbance. There were some clothes strewn about, but Daryl had seen her cell in the prison and she wasn't the tidiest person in the world. So, he couldn't really be sure if the mess was from the squatter or if was just your average, cozy disorder. He continued on into another guest room that looked like it might have been where Patricia and Otis had stayed, a study, a bathroom, and a couple closets, all of which bore evidence of some minor disruption - some level of basic exploration - but seemed like they were essentially in their original condition.

Which left only one room. Beth's. And it felt right that it would work out that way. It felt right that he would find it last. That it would truly be the final step on this long journey. And it felt right that the door was closed, too. That he couldn't just approach the space passively. He couldn't see it with a mere glance. He had to make a conscious decision. Take a concrete action.

It had to be deliberate.

It also had to be smart, so he needed to give any trapped walker one last chance to reveal itself before he looked inside. He couldn't bring himself to just bang on the door like he normally would, though. It was a sacred space to him. He didn't want to pound on the door and demand entry; he wanted to knock on it and receive an invitation. He wanted to be respectful. He wanted to treat it with care. So he raised a loose fist, quivering from the pulse of far too many emotions, and tapped lightly on the wood. He did it so softly that it was practically inaudible and he had to make himself do it again with more force so it could have its intended effect.

He knew the only thing that could possibly be inside was a walker, and he was almost positive there wasn't even that, but he couldn't help but be disappointed when nothing followed but silence. In some crazy part of him he would never admit, not even to himself, he'd been hoping to hear her respond. Hoping to hear her voice call out to him from the other side.

 _Who is it?_

 _Come in._

 _It's open._

That wasn't going to happen, though. He was never going to hear her voice again. He could knock on that door for eternity, but she was never going to invite him inside. And, with that thought, he suddenly felt like an intruder. In a powerful rush, he got the terrible sensation that he was about to do something wrong. He was about to invade her privacy in a way he never would have if she were alive and in a flash that made him feel almost predatory. Like he was taking advantage of the fact that she was dead and couldn't guard her secrets any more. He was the last man standing and the world was his now. He was just going to take what he wanted.

And he was going to take it from _her_.

The thought unsettled him so deeply that, instead of reaching for the knob, he took as step back and sat down on the hallway floor. He leaned against the wall, drew his legs close to his chest, and just stared at the closed door. He'd worried about her privacy before, of course. He'd considered the propriety of going through her things, wondered if it was fair, thought about whether it was something he had the right to do at all. They'd always been abstract concerns, though, and it never really troubled him all that much.

Before Glenn gave him that picture, before the altered experience of this whole trip, Beth had been well and truly dead to him. He'd _thought_ about her all the time, but she didn't _exist_ to him at all. He didn't feel her presence. He didn't think she might be speaking to him through tinned fruit and mileage counts and street names. He did now, though. She was real for him now in a way she hadn't been since her death and the decision was real now, too. As he sat there, eyes burning a hole in the wood in front of him, none of it was abstract in any way. He was actually about to waltz into the room of the woman he loved, without her knowledge or consent, and go through every fucking inch of it. He was going to find things she might not have wanted anyone to discover, let alone him. He highly doubted there were any real skeletons in her closet, that there was anything truly embarrassing or incriminating or that needed to be hidden for any reason at all, but that wasn't really the point. It didn't really matter what _he_ thought about her things, it mattered what _she_ thought about them. He knew from his own experience that just because something seemed meaningless to someone else, didn't mean it didn't feel incredibly private to him. Surely there was a chance that she might feel the same way, too.

What if she felt the same way?

He sat there for countless minutes pondering that question. Trying to imagine her feelings. Trying to be brutally honest with himself about what Beth would want and what was truly acceptable for him to do. He pictured the girl who tended to his injuries down that very hallway, the young woman who nurtured an (essentially) orphaned baby in a cold, impersonal prison, and the amazing human being who held him while he wept outside a run-down shack in the deep Georgian woods. And he knew without a doubt that that girl, that young woman, and that amazing human being would all want him to have this. Beth would want him to have this. She was giving and caring and unfailingly kind and, if he thought it would help him, she'd want him to have it. She'd offer whatever she could, give whatever she had, if it would ease his grief. If it would bring him comfort or make him smile or just give him something, anything, to hold on to.

Of course she would, he thought.

That's what made her so incredible.

That's what made him love her.

That's what made her _Beth_.

Of course she would, he thought. And he wondered why he ever doubted it at all.

He closed his eyes and, before he knew what he was doing, he started speaking quietly, "I'm gonna open up your door now, Beth. I'm gonna go look at your room. And I wanna thank you for lettin' me do that. 'Cause I know you would. I know you'd open that door for me if you could."

He pressed his hand over her picture in his pocket reflexively and continued, "Should thank you for a lot of shit. Shoulda thanked you for a lot of shit when I had the chance, but I fucked that up. I wanna be better than that, though. I wanna be better for you, so I'm gonna thank you for this now." He started to cry softly, but he noticed his tears even less than he was noticing his own words, "'Cause I really need this, girl. I fuckin' _need_ this. And I know you know I do."

"But I ain't sure you know how much I love you and I need you to know that, too," he added after a beat, voice rough and shaking. "I fuckin' love you."

He had never said that before, to her or to anyone else. Not as an adult. Not since he was a small child and could still express, and legitimately feel, that kind of affection towards his mother. Back in that tiny window of his earliest life before the willingness to say the words, and the ability to fully mean them, fell prey to his father's cruelty and her neglect. But it had felt so _good_ to say it in that moment. It had felt warm and true and liberating.

It had felt right.

So, he said it again, "I love you and nothin' in that room's gonna change that. Ain't nothin' I could find in there that would make me stop lovin' you. Ain't nothin' that could _ever_ do that. So I don't want you to worry or be embarrassed or think I'm judgin' you or nothin'."

"I'm just lovin' you, girl," he finished softly. "That's all I can fuckin' do."

He took a deep breath and rubbed his face with his palms, scrubbing away the tears. When he opened his eyes and saw the door in front of him again, it no longer seemed like something that was there to keep him out: it seemed like it was there to keep her in. To keep her safe and protected and to preserve the precious relics of her life until someone else came along to perform the task.

Until he came along.

He stood up with a sigh, took a step forward and grabbed hold of the knob.

It was time.

* * *

Okay, I know that was a _really_ long way to go just to get to Beth's door, but I thought the journey was important. For the three of you that might be interested in continuing to read this, I promise that events will pick up in the next chapter and we'll really start to explore Beth's room and Daryl's reaction to - and relationship with - her things. And, though this is a bittersweet story, there _will_ be happy times (and plenty of Bethyl feels) ahead. That being said, I know this kind of story line isn't for everyone and so I really want to thank you again for reading this.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And, if you have a chance and want to, let me know what you think. No pressure. :)


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post this and I'm really, really sorry to those of you who were kind enough to comment on the last chapter and who I've completely ignored. I've been really sick for over a week now (still am) and have been pretty much out of commission from my life across the board. Your support means so much to me and I apologize for coming across as ungrateful. Please know that I'm not.

Unfortunately, given the circumstances, this chapter didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to. (At least I'm blaming the circumstances, but it could just be me.) I thought I'd go ahead and put it out there anyway though, because - selfishly - I need some forward momentum right now and I'm hoping this will help in some weird way. (Got my own Daryl-like mysticism happening here.)

And, finally (I promise), Beth's room in this piece is inspired by her room on the show, largely in terms of the furniture and general heirloom vibe, but the objects have been made up because...well, I wanted to and I could. :)

* * *

When Daryl finally opened the door to Beth's room, he stopped breathing. Or maybe he started hyperventilating. When he reflected on it later, he wasn't quite sure, all he knew was that he ceased functioning normally. The regular rhythms of his life were disrupted and his body was temporarily, but completely, seized by a new beat.

Because it was everything he dreamed, but didn't dare dream. It was everything he wanted, but tried to tell himself he wouldn't truly get: a space that really felt like _her_. It was warm and feminine and inviting and felt like fucking _home_ even though it bore absolutely no resemblance to any home he'd ever known. Even though it was the exact opposite of the trailer he grew up in, the cheap apartments he later lived in, and the dank, grey prison that was the fairest of them all.

It felt like home even though nothing in Daryl's life had ever looked like the rich, carved wood of her headboard or the beautiful, intricate pattern of her handmade quilt. Nothing had ever glowed like the light amber glass of her antique lampshade, which reflected the sun filtering in through the adjacent window and shone despite being covered in a fine layer of dust. Nothing had ever been as fragile as the small ceramic figurines that decorated a corner of her dresser or as delicate as the piece of old lace that lay beneath them.

It felt like home even though he'd never had anything of the kind of quality or substance of the pieces in that room. Never had anything of that kind of worth. Nothing of the monetary value that was so clear to the naked eye, and certainly nothing of the _personal_ value that he could feel to his very core. Some of the furniture was probably a hundred years old and he wouldn't have been surprised if it had been in their house that whole time. He imagined that a couple generations of Greenes had slept on that bed, that old Nana Greene kept her unmentionables in that top dresser drawer, that Beth's mother had read to her by the light of that golden lamp, just like Herschel's mother had once done for him. The whole place radiated memories. Memories you'd want to share. Memories that turned into stories that turned into family legends as they were handed down from one generation to the next. Tales you'd want to laugh about and cry about together. Well-worn yarns you'd relive and rehash over the Thanksgiving dinners that Daryl had never had.

It was like _nothing_ that Daryl had ever had.

But it felt like home, because it felt like _Beth_. And that was all the familiarity he needed.

It wasn't all antiques and heirlooms, of course. It had been an active space in the 21st century and bore all the expected signs of modernity: a laptop, an i-pod, a stack of glossy magazines, and dozens of other objects he hadn't had a chance to fully process. The finer details he couldn't even begin to absorb yet, but which he knew would ultimately be the things that meant the most. The things that were far more _hers_ than the wooden bedframe or the braided rug or any of the other pieces she probably inherited, rather than acquired for herself.

As he had that thought, that Beth likely hadn't chosen that furniture or that rug or that lamp, he wondered then how on earth they could still feel so much like her. He'd never had anything that good in his life, but everything he did have had also been second-hand, and most of that shit never felt like him at all. (Except to the extent that it felt like him to have something used and discarded and that no one else would want.) He was captured by the notion that maybe these things felt like Beth because they'd helped create her. Maybe she dreamed her beautiful dreams _because_ she slept on that bed. Maybe if another headboard had watched over her in her sleep, she would have had different nights entirely. Maybe it was the collection of all those dreams, that difference between one headboard and the other, that had helped make her _Beth_. Maybe the bed had slowly imprinted itself on her over years of peaceful slumber until they shared the same grain.

Maybe _it_ felt like _her_ because _she_ felt like _it_.

Maybe he was losing his mind.

He shook his head and sighed, dismayed once again by his bizarrely whimsical thinking. It really didn't matter why that bed felt like her, it only mattered that it did. It only mattered that that was where she'd slept for years and years, including those few nights when he was right down the hall. That was where she'd curled up, snuggled under that beautiful handmade quilt, on nights that were probably just a little too cold in an old, drafty farmhouse. That was where he could picture her, in happier times, with hair in a wild mess on her pillow and her eyelids dancing to the lively pulse of her dreams.

And he _could_ picture her there. He could picture her sleeping in that bed and writing at that desk and rolling around in peals of foolish laughter on that rug. He could truly envision her living in that room. And that wasn't just a joy and a treasure and maybe even one of those miracles he'd never believed in. It was all those things and more, but in the moment, more than anything, it was a tremendous fucking _relief._

He was acutely aware - because he'd constantly reminded himself in an effort to manage his own expectations - that the room he'd find at the Greene family farm wasn't _really_ the room of the woman he loved. It was the room of the _girl_ that woman used to be. Beth was sixteen years old when she'd last lived in that house and she was nineteen when he fell in love with her. (Though he really hated to acknowledge that second figure.) Three years that would have been formative in the old world, but were completely _trans_ formative in the new one. On the post-apocalyptic calendar, three years were like three decades: long enough to become a new person several times over.

He knew there was a core to Beth that never wavered. That, in her marrow, she was the same person when she'd lived a sweet, sheltered life in Senoia as she was when she'd scrounged for survival in a walker-filled wasteland. But he also knew there were things about her that _had_ changed. He'd _seen_ her change. He'd seen her grow stronger and more confident. He'd seen her become more responsible and more independent. He'd seen a lot of changes in her. He knew he hadn't seen them all, though, because he wasn't even paying _attention_ most of that time. And he was painfully conscious of that. He'd agonized over all the days, the months, the almost fucking _years_ , that he was blind to her. He didn't see her then and he had an aching clarity about that now.

She might have been different than the girl that lived in that room before he even knew anything about her at all.

So being able to see her in that space, knowing all the reasons he might not have, all the perfectly logical and entirely predictable reasons he'd been trying to dampen his anticipation with for months, all the reasons that would be completely his fault, thoroughly and unquestionably his fault for disregarding the gift in his midst, was such a staggering relief that he almost collapsed. His body went loose, knees and shoulders sagging; his head bowed, unsupported by his lax spine; and all the air left his lungs in an audible rush. To an outside observer it would have looked like his hand, still clutched tightly to the doorknob, was the only thing keeping him standing. And it felt that way. Felt like his hold on that door was the only allowing him to maintain his balance as one of his burdens was lifted: steadying him as he adjusted to the slightly - but oh so beautifully - lessened weight.

"Fuck, girl," he said softly, in voice so hushed even he barely heard it. "You really are fuckin' here."

He stood there motionless for several long minutes, having every thought and no thought at once. He felt everything and a blissful nothing and he was momentarily lost to it all. When he finally regained his equilibrium, he was afraid to raise his head again. Afraid that the picture would be different that time. Afraid that he'd seen what he'd wanted to see and that, if he looked at it with new eyes, he'd have to confront his delusion.

The mirage would disappear and Beth would be gone all over again.

He knew that wasn't true, though. Knew those were just the wild fears of his battered mind. He might be going crazy, might be becoming untethered and unstable, but he wasn't hallucinating. He wasn't having visions and see things that weren't there. (At least not yet, he thought, less concerned by the possibility than he would have liked.) He knew he didn't make it up, but it wasn't logic that comforted him. It wasn't reasoning that eventually allowed him to straighten himself up, loosen his grip on the knob, and return his gaze to the room. It was the feeling that throbbed warmly in his chest and hummed in his veins. It was the gut instinct that he'd survived by all his life, that primordial intuition that he'd always considered to be his only natural talent, that was crying out to him and sounding every alarm: shouting at the top of it's lungs _She's here! She's here!_

When he finally listened to that voice and looked back at the room again, it was exactly as he'd left it. Actually, he realized, it was exactly as _she_ left it. Or, at least, it appeared to be. As he re-evaluated the space, he saw what he had overlooked the first time: nothing was disturbed. He was initially so taken aback by what was there, he hadn't notice what _wasn't._ The neatness and order had felt so right for the room, that he didn't register the fact that it was actually wrong for the circumstances. Upon his second inspection, though, he was struck by the almost complete lack of disruption. The closet door and the top drawer on the nightstand were both open a few inches: just enough that they couldn't be called _ajar_ , but not nearly enough to view what was inside. And there was a pair of pale yellow pajama bottoms and a white tank top decorated with tiny green clovers crumpled up on the floor by her bed, but they were clean and looked to be her size and he could imagine her dropping them there as she got dressed on that final, fateful day.

That was it.

Everything else looked untouched.

Fuck, even her _toothpaste_ was still there. He could see straight into her bathroom from his position at the door and there was an almost full tube sitting in a blue glass on the side of the sink. It was unbelievable and he was shocked that he'd missed it before. The apocalypse had dealt a death blow to dentistry and, three year into the end of the world, toothpaste was the new gold. Toothpaste and cigarettes. Those were the most treasured commodities in the new world economy: two things that people couldn't live without, didn't expire, and would never be manufactured again. There hadn't been a single tube in any of the other bathrooms in the house. He hadn't consciously been looking for any, but it would have been such a precious and completely unexpected find, that he knew he would have noticed if they'd been there. He was positive the mystery houseguest had taken them all.

But he'd left Beth's behind.

Daryl couldn't figure out why on earth the man would have done that. It was completely irrelevant, and a total distraction from the things he'd rather be thinking about, but his mind still seized on the question. Because things like that just didn't happen anymore. People didn't leave toothpaste behind. And they didn't fail to a search room in a house they've otherwise cleared, either. There's no way the squatter didn't open Beth's door and there's no way he didn't see that toothpaste when he did. If Daryl hadn't been so emotionally attached to the space, if that had just been a random girl's room to him, it would have been the _very_ first thing he'd have noticed. The thing was a beacon of hygiene in a dirty world and it was right fucking _there_. Why hadn't he taken it? Was there a reason he didn't want to touch this room? Did he have a daughter or a young wife or some woman he'd loved and lost? Did this room remind him of her? Did he see it as _her_ shrine? Or did he see it as _Beth's_? Did he somehow sense _her_ importance? Did he recognize the sanctity of this space? Did he understand its meaning?

Did he feel it, too?

It was a ludicrous notion, but the increasingly mystical part of him really believed it could true. Believed it was entirely possible that the energy in that room, that spirit that was so overpowering to him, could be palpable to a stranger as well. It was as real as the light streaming in from the window: brilliant and warm and illuminating.

Untouchable but undeniable.

The rational part of him forced himself to abandon the inane speculation, though. He didn't drive for weeks just to stare at her toothpaste and contemplate the motivations of the drifter that didn't take it. He was about to start re-examining the room, go back to imagining Beth instead of some unknown intruder, when something else unusual caught his eye: there was no mirror over the sink. The wooden frame was missing its glass, but there was no evidence of it being broken. There were no shards on the floor or fragments clinging to the edge of the frame. Whatever happened must have happened when Beth was still there: when someone was around who would still care enough to clean it up. He couldn't imagine how it could have been broken in the normal course of life, though. Not the normal course of life in the Greene home, anyway. Before the turn, back when walkers didn't get bludgeoned to a second death in bathrooms, the only broken mirrors in Daryl's world had been shattered either through unchecked violence or drunken stupidity (or the far too common, and far more dangerous, combination of both.) They'd been broken because objects were hurled at them in a rage or because uncoordinated bodies crashed into them in a stupor. There's _no way_ that happened there, though. So what _did_ happen?

How did she break her mirror?

After a long minute, the answer came to him in a horrible, blinding flash. His hand flew to his chest, palm pressed firmly to Beth's picture, and he began to breathe heavily. He closed his eyes against the onslaught of the realization, but soon opened them again and stared back at the empty frame in shock. That was how she slit her wrist. She broke that mirror, took a piece of it to her tender skin, and watched the precious life flow out of her veins. That was how she did it and she did it there.

She did it right _there_.

Those pristine white tiles had once been smeared red with her blood.

Just like the floor at Grady.

He'd thought about her suicide attempt before, of course, and not just as ammunition to use against her. But, like so many other things recently, it had never be that visceral of an experience. When she'd done it, he had barely known her, and by the time he did know her (and care), it was so far in the past that it was an abstraction. It was just a story and one he'd rather not read, so he'd only done it shallowly and fleetingly. He'd peruse it quickly and then put it back down again for another rainy day. Staring at that frame, though, it was no longer a story. It was as good as a memory. It was just as vivid, just as real. Because he _did_ have a memory of her death. He _had_ a vision of her dead body.. He knew what that looked like and could easily overlay the image. He could see her dying in that bathroom. He could see her bleeding out on that floor.

And he could feel it, too.

And for a few moments, he felt every terrible, soul-crushing thing he did that day in Atlanta. He felt all the pain and the rage and the unrelenting anguish. But, suddenly, in a wave of emotion that was almost physical, he was overcome by a rush of gratitude. Of pure, unadulterated relief. Like he'd just woken up from a nightmare and discovered the monsters weren't real. Because even though she died, she didn't die that day.

She didn't die that day.

She lived for another two and half years. _Two and a half years_. Two and a half years where he got to be with her and be changed by her. Two and a half years where he got to get to know her and grow to love her. Two and a half years where he got to become a better man: the kind of man she might, just might, have been able to love back someday.

Even if it was only just a little.

Even if it was only as a friend.

And, yes, he'd wasted almost all that time, wasted it in ways he'd never be able to forgive himself for, but he'd _had_ it. He'd _had_ that time. He'd heard her sing to Judith on sleepless nights in the prison and sunny afternoons in the courtyard. He'd watched her laugh conspiratorially with Maggie and delicately handle Carl's crush. He'd shared her first (and only) drink and basked in her glow under a half-moon. He'd taught her how to use his crossbow and carried her welcome weight on his back.

And it wasn't just that he'd had all those experiences, it wasn't just that he's had the time to get to know her: it was that he'd had the time to get to know her _right_. Because he _did_ know her a little bit when she'd tried to kill herself. He had actually met her and she was a character in his life: she had a name and a face and the broad strokes of a backstory. He did know her a _little_ bit, and it was just enough to be worse than never knowing her at all, because it was just enough to know her all _wrong_. To remember her dismissively. To think of her cruelly. If she had succeeded, she would have existed forever in his mind as the weak little girl who opted out. The pampered princess that couldn't handle it when life got rough and probably did her family, and his group, a favor by ridding them of the dead weight. Because that's who he was then. That's how he would have thought of her and that's how she would have always remained.

 _That's_ who she would have been to him.

She wouldn't have been the girl he loved. The girl who smiled at him for no reason and made him want to smile back. The girl who showed him how to change a diaper and made him feel like he was still a man. The girl who taught him the lyrics to _Hey Jude_ and made him kind of like the song. The girl who laughed at Merle's crude jokes and made him wonder if they might be funny. The girl who brought him meals on watch and made him glad it was time for dinner. The girl who called him on his bullshit and made him thankful that she did. The girl who held him when he cried and made him believe he might be worth that. The girl who beamed at a can of fruit cocktail and made his heart beat just for her. The girl who changed him and was _still_ changing him and would _be_ changing him for the rest of his life.

She would have never been that girl.

He thought of that last night in the funeral home, the night when it really _did_ all fall apart, and had a mad impulse to write the mirror a thank you note:

 _Dear Mirror,_

 _Thank you for not killing her. Thank you for giving me time._

 _Love, Daryl_

And he'd sign it that way, too. _Love, Daryl_. Not _Sincerely,_ not C _ordially,_ not _Yours_. No, he'd sign it with fucking _Love_ because he absolutely loved that mirror in that moment. Loved if for failing. Loved it for not being the instrument of her destruction. He would have assumed that he'd hate the thing. Despise it for causing her pain, for tearing her flesh, for making her bleed. But, in the same way he thought that the type of headboard she'd had might have influenced her dreams, he thought her choice of weapon might have influenced her thinking. If she'd used a razor or a steak knife maybe she wouldn't have stopped herself. Maybe there was something about that shard of glass that made her hesitate, made her reconsider. Maybe it spoke to her somehow and its voice told her _no_. Told her _don't go_.

 _Stay._

 _He needs you._

"Thank you for listening, Beth," he said, voice soft and shaking. "Thank you for fuckin' _listening_ , girl."

He laughed lightly despite his overwhelming emotion and added after a beat, "Know you hate to do that. Know your stubborn ass hates to fuckin' listen sometimes. But, _fuck_ , you picked the right time to do it. Saved that shit for a special occasion, but you sure picked the right fuckin' one."

"Woulda been a good tracker, girl," he continued, the tears that had been threatening since he first opened the door finally beginning to fall. "You knew how to read the signs."

He'd barely even realized he was talking until his unconscious switch to the past tense stirred something deep inside him. He reached up and rubbed his faces in a few vigorous strokes, trying to push back the creeping despair. He didn't want to think about what he'd lost. He wanted to think about what he had. Because what he had right then was more than he'd had since she'd died and more than he'd ever have again: an entire room of her things left almost completely unexplored.

A treasure trove still waiting to be uncovered.

He turned his attention away from the bathroom, away from the absent mirror and all the time it represented, and tried to focus on all the other things he hadn't noticed before. All the details, the dozens and dozens of personal artifacts, he'd been too focused on the soul-shaping powers of headboards and inner lives of intruders to begin to process. There were the stuffed animals on the cream-colored chair in the corner by the window: a small brown bunny with blue eyes, a sock monkey, and a worn pony whose presumably once-proud mane had been reduced to a few wispy tufts of tan fur. There was the leather-bound bible and small stack of textbooks on her presumably heirloom desk, the top of which was American history and the bottom three of which he couldn't see. There was the scattering of objects on her equally old bookshelf, many of which were too small or too odd to make out from his distance, or obscured by his position entirely, but some of which he could easily discern: a foot-long piece of driftwood, a mason jar full of rocks, a blue glass bird, three wooden boxes, and a flute.

He had no idea she played the flute.

Did she really play the fucking _flute?_

 _Seriously?_

There was so much to take in and he didn't know where to begin. He'd thought about this moment for months. Imagined what he would do first. Tried to decide whether he'd start with her drawers or her closet or her shelves or under her bed. Over the course of the trip, though, he'd been toying with a new idea more and more: an idea that he now knew was the right one. He wouldn't go in at all. Not at first. He'd just look at it for awhile.

He'd stay right where he was and wouldn't go past the door.

He'd never had a Christmas morning. He'd never had brightly wrapped presents waiting for him under a sparkling tree. _This_ was his Christmas morning and it was the only one he'd ever get. There would never been anything in his life that could mean as much to him as what lay inside that room. Nothing that could ever be as big of a gift. And he didn't want to squander that. He didn't want to gorge himself and burn through it all in some orgy of shredded paper and ribbon: forgetting the first toy by the time he'd opened the last. He wanted to open each present deliberately. He wanted to inspect it, play with it, savor it. He wanted to extract every last drop of joy from it that he could before he moved on to the next, equally wondrous, offering. Because, even though he'd treasure all of her things forever, even though he couldn't imagine them ever losing their power, they'd only be new once and there would never be any more.

This was it.

This was all he was ever going to have.

When he'd imagined that plan on the road, he'd thought he'd only linger in her doorway that first day. That it would just be a brief interlude and he'd start his exploration the following morning. But standing there, knowing everything he'd encountered up until that point, he knew that wasn't enough. Wasn't right. He didn't need to _wait_ for it; he needed to _earn_ it. He needed to give before he could take.

He needed to _do_ shit first.

He was going to clean up the mud and the blood and the squirrel bones. He was going to get rid of the empty cans and take the branch of the roof. There was probably a solid month's work or more to do on the farm, and he didn't plan on tackling all that, but he needed to restore some basic dignity to the house itself.

It wasn't just four walls and a roof.

It was a home.

And he was going to make sure it looked that way before he went into that room.

...

He began the next day surprisingly eager to take on the role of post-apocalyptic homeowner. He allowed himself some time in the morning to stand in Beth's doorway and soak up her presence, but only stayed for a few minutes. He didn't wanted to linger; he wanted to get to _work_. And that felt so good. It felt so good to want to do something. He'd been busy since the day Beth died, had kept himself as busy as he possibly _could_ , but he hadn't actually _wanted_ to do any of those things. Until the events of this trip, there had been no desire behind any of his actions at all.

They'd just been duties.

Distractions.

Reviving the Greene family home didn't feel like a distraction, though, and it didn't feel like a duty, either. Actually, it _did_ feel like a duty, but it was a duty he _wanted_. A duty he was proud to have and looked forward to executing. So he threw himself completely into the task, tackling one room at a time, starting with the downstairs. As he broke a sweat cleaning up after the muddy squatter, he was startled to discover that all the anger he'd worked up towards the man the previous day was gone. He wasn't mad at him for tracking dirt into the house and he wasn't even upset that he was left to deal with the mess. He had no animosity towards the guy at all. He was no longer the man who had dirtied up Beth's house, he was the man who hadn't touched her room. Daryl still had no idea why, but he knew it without a doubt: the intruder had left her things alone.

And that was enough to absolve him of just about anything.

Which was somewhat irrelevant, though, because as the day wore on, Daryl was eventually able to see that the squatter didn't require absolution in the first place. His trespasses didn't need to be forgiven. Objectively, Daryl had known that from the beginning, of course, but the longer he spent going through the house, he more he began to truly _feel_ that way. Feel that it wasn't wrong for the stranger to have stayed there. In fact, he actually came to the conclusion that it was perfectly _right_. That it was right and proper and undeniably _good_ that someone found sanctuary in that house. That's exactly what the Greenes would have wanted. And, in a strange way, he thought it was what the house would have wanted, too. Not just wanted, but _deserved_. That home was a special place and it deserved to be appreciated. Daryl had struggled for survival enough to know that any secure shelter was treasured and, footprints and gory towels aside, whoever had stayed in that house had been grateful to be there.

He couldn't possibly have been as thankful as he should have been, but Daryl was sure he was thankful nevertheless.

And he took comfort in that as he slogged through the mud and the bones and all the other filth that only came to light when the more obvious filth was removed. He was enjoying the simple pleasures of minor accomplishments when he finally worked his way into the living room. Though he had seen it the previous day, the sight of the blood-stained couch in the afternoon sunlight stopped him dead in his tracks. He was hit by a sudden and genuine wave of sadness over whatever must have happened there and a real sense of compassion for whoever it had happened to. And he was caught completely off guard by that reaction. He wasn't an unfeeling person - was actually pretty sensitive in his own way - but evidence of human suffering was the permanent backdrop of the new world and he had long since become inured such grisly displays. So he wasn't sure why it got to him that time. Maybe it was just seeing it in the Greene family home. Maybe it was because he was starting to feel some strange connection to the soiled squatter: just another needy man who'd sought refuge in that house and who might, just might, have sensed Beth's spirit, too. Or maybe it was just that he was feeling everything differently those days. Seeing everything in a new light. Whatever the reason, though, it struck him so forcefully in that moment that someone's personal nightmare had played out on that couch. Someone had been in a tremendous amount of pain there and, studying the scene, they hadn't been alone. He was pretty sure that the injured person hadn't been using all the medical equipment and textbooks to treat themselves. Someone else had been trying to take care of them: the muddy houseguest was either some desperate soul's last-ditch doctor or he was the pitiable patient himself. And, as Daryl imagined that drama unfolding, he felt a tremendous amount of empathy for them both. Felt a true sadness for whoever bled out on that couch and an even bigger (and even more psychologically transparent) heartache for the one who had struggled to save them. He couldn't be sure of what the series of event were, or what the outcome ultimately was, but that couch had undeniably been the site of something awful. Something that had _hurt_ in all the ways a thing _can_ hurt.

He decided to burn it.

There was no way the upholstery could be saved, no way to erase the misery it was soaked in, and there was no way he could accept that misery staying in the Greene home, either. That pain didn't belong there. There was a small part of him that felt bad about destroying something that had probably held real personal significance for their family: a place where Beth might have lounged with her mother on Saturday mornings or where Herschel might have studied his bible on Sunday nights. A larger part of him knew he wasn't really destroying anything, though. He wasn't a murderer, he was an undertaker: just providing a decent funeral for something that was already dead. He dragged the thing out into the yard, careful not to scratch the wooden floors as he did so, but decided not to actually set it alight until he had a chance to round up the walkers on the property. (They'd need to be burned, too, and there was no reason to draw that kind of attention twice.) When he got back inside, the atmosphere felt noticeably lighter: relieved of a burden he hadn't fully appreciated until it was removed. The whole house seemed brighter and happier and just plain _homier_ than it had before.

He'd gotten a lot done that day, but getting rid of that couch definitely felt like the most important achievement.

And, with the sun getting low, it felt like a good place to stop, too. So he locked the house up tight, grabbed a quick dinner of some canned shit he didn't pay any attention to and retired for the evening to stand in Beth's doorway. (He might have actually paid attention to what he was eating if he'd given in to his desire to take his meal in her hallway, but he'd had a feeling that Hershel wouldn't have approved of that. Seemed like was the kind of man that would have insisted on dinner at the table and Daryl had wanted to respect that. But he hadn't wanted to sit at the table when he could be upstairs, either, so he'd decided to eat as fast as he possibly could instead. It wasn't dining, it was a race: making the actual content of the meal completely irrelevant.)

His belly full, he leaned against her doorframe and watched in quiet contentment as the setting sun illuminated her room in a welcoming glow: casting long shadows that made the space seem even cozier than it already did. He'd brought a lantern with him for later, but wanted to enjoy the natural light for as long as possible. To savor that added sense of warmth and vitality it brought to the place. After a few moments of simply basking in the ambience of Beth, his eyes began to slowly scan the room. He'd taken a thorough inventory of her things the previous day, all of the things he could see from the door at least, but he started the process all over again anyway. Started going over each item individually: evaluating it, inspecting it, considering it. He tried to make a circuit around the room, but he kept being drawn back to the same thing again and again. No matter what else he tried to focus on, his gaze kept returning to the same place:

Her mason jar full of rocks.

He just couldn't keep his mind off the thing and it began to gnaw away at him. On the surface, it shouldn't have been all that captivating to begin with, let alone something to get hung up on. Lots of people have rock collections, after all, and - though he found everything about Beth remarkable in some way - there wasn't anything _truly_ remarkable about that. And nothing really surprising, either. He could easily see Beth being drawn to that sort of thing. Could see her being captured by the simple beauties of nature. Could see her appreciating the different colors and textures and the unique values of each individual stone. But, the thing was, what was in that mason jar wasn't really a rock collection. At least not in the traditional sense. The was nothing distinctive or attractive about any of the rocks inside: they were just dull, grey, garden-variety _rocks_. The kind that exist everywhere. The kind that would be pictured under the dictionary definition of _rock._

Notable only for being so unnoteworthy.

So why were they special to her? Why did she collect them and keep them and look at them every day?

He'd been expecting to encounter mysteries like that, of course. Known that her room would offer answers but raise new questions in return. Expecting it hadn't prepared him for it at all, though. Hadn't prepared him for how to deal with an object that proved him right. He'd been having such a good day up until that point, but none of it mattered in that horrible instant when he realized that he'd never know what those rocks had meant to her. It was just one story, such a comparatively small loss against the vast landscape of her death, but it felt so fucking _important_ in that moment. It felt like something he _needed_ to know, like a piece of knowledge that had been _taken_ from him, and he was overcome by such an unbearable rush of anguish that he almost completely shut down. The loss of that story felt like her death in microcosm. His sorrow was so deep and intense that he didn't even know how to feel it at all, so he did what he always did when he was in too much pain: he channeled all his emotion into anger. The peace he'd felt so recently was at once a distant memory and in it's place was a pure, pulse-pounding rage. He had a sudden vision of himself in the hallway at Grady, smashing the jar into that bitch cop's face again and again: crushing her skull with the damn thing until there was nothing left but a viscous puddle of viscera and gore. He imagined shoving each one of those rocks down her throat: breaking her teeth and making her gag until she finally choked to death on the memories she'd stolen. His fury was a living thing and it's fierce energy forced him away from the door; his blood was boiling and he couldn't stand still. He wanted to punch the wall, break something, _destroy_ something, but that was the Greene family home.

He couldn't do that there.

He didn't _want_ to do that there. Didn't want to taint that place with his darkness.

But he couldn't _leave_ , either. And he was truly baffled by that. He wasn't surprised that he was angry, wasn't surprised that he felt like he couldn't vent his anger in their home, but he was completely taken aback by the sensation that he couldn't leave. (Though, he thought, he really should be getting used to that. Getting used to having feelings that he didn't understand, but felt a prisoner to all the same.) He wanted to go out to find a walker to kill or tree to wail into or anything, just fucking _anything_ , to unleashed his rage upon. A rage he hadn't felt that strongly in months, because he'd barely felt _anything_ that strongly in months. A rage that felt black and ugly and so wrong to have in that home. But he had such an intense feeling that, if he left, it'd be like he was abandoning her. Like he'd be saying that nursing his anger was more important than enjoying her company and that was too terrible for him to even contemplate. He told himself that he was being ridiculous, of course, but as usual it didn't matter.

He wasn't going anywhere.

So, he just stalked the hallway like a caged tiger instead: breathing heavily, clenching and unclenching his fists, and trying desperately to calm himself down. Eventually, his rage cooled to a simmer and lost it's pointed edge: transforming from a red-hot fury over Beth's murder into a low-grade seething over the general injustice of their entire aborted relationship. And, in that transition, the wounded animal of his mind began to lash out at a new target. Maggie. Unlike the other objects of his anger - the ruthless kidnappers, trigger-happy cops, and, worst of all, his own fucking self - he didn't hate Maggie and knew that she hadn't had anything to do with Beth's death. He actually didn't have any _anger_ towards her at all, just an ungodly amount of _resentment_. Jealousy. As he paced the hall, he walked past her room hundreds of times and each pass added to his envy. He thought about all those years she'd had with Beth: all those memories that Maggie had and he didn't. Memories that, though he knew Maggie loved her sister, he was convinced would mean more to him than they did to her. Maggie probably knew what what those rocks meant, he thought, but if that knowledge was magically plucked from her head one day, she probably wouldn't even notice it was gone. He'd burn down all of what was left of _Atlanta_ to find out what they meant, though. It was simply more important to him than it was to her. He was sure of that. And it just wasn't fair.

It just wasn't fucking _fair_.

He was so caught up in his emotions, so awash in anger and despair and self-pity, that it took almost a full hour for reason to kick in: for him to finally realize that if Maggie knew the meaning behind the rocks, he could know it, too. She could tell him when he got back to Alexandria. The story wasn't lost, it hadn't fallen victim to an assassin's bullet, he could still hear it someday. And, when he eventually grasped that, it was just like that beautiful moment of clarity he'd had over her broken mirror: that blissful instant when he'd been able to see that things weren't as bad as they could have been. When he'd been given a temporary, but desperately needed, reprieve from feeling the full weight of his grief.

He stopped pacing and returned slowly to his perch by her door. He stared in wonder at the jar again, still visible in the now dying light, and it no longer taunted him. It no longer _haunted_ him. The rocks weren't tiny tombstones anymore. They weren't little grave markers for a tale that died _with_ her: they were building materials for a tale he could write _for_ her. Knowing that he could still find out the real story one day, knowing that there would be an eventual end to his torment, allowed Daryl to free his mind up to create origin stories of his own. Those rocks could have meant _anything_ to Beth and that lack of definition, which had so recently been such a horrible void of knowledge, was suddenly a world of possibility.

He closed his eyes, placed his palm over his heart, over Beth's picture, and inhaled deeply: feeling like he was taking his first real breath in far too long. He sat down cross-legged in the doorway, lit the lantern, and began to dream. He locked his eyes on that jar and started tell himself stories. Dozens of stories. Stories full of imagery and emotion and detail. Stories of Beth at all ages and temperaments. At all those stages of her life he'd never witnessed but thought, if he tried enough, he could actually envision quite well.

He was spellbound and he lost himself to it completely.

He imagined her collecting them as a small child. It was a crisp Fall day and she was dressed for the weather. Jeans or maybe little corduroys. Maybe with a cute patch stitched on the back pocket, too, like a rainbow or a heart. Something that made them special. Something that made her want to put them on that day. Something that had made her mother repair them a few times after various scrapes and accidents: restoring them lovingly because they could never be truly replaced. She was in a couple layers on top. Maybe a long-sleeve shirt and a sweater or a cute little hoodie. Something in a combination of the kind of clashing colors little kids like to insist on. He saw her blonde hair - which was probably even lighter at that age - tied up in two unruly pigtails. Probably held back by something a little girl would think was pretty. A colorful elastic with baubles on it. Little plastic butterflies or stars and crescent moons.

He imagined that she wanted to go pick flowers for her room that day. She wanted to go out into nature and bring nature back with her, but it was Autumn and there were no flowers to gather. Nothing bright and verdant and alive to cheer up her space. She was a determined little thing, though, and that didn't stop her. She could find the beauty in anything and just wanted to go outside. Wanted to be alone with her wild dreams and her cheerful thoughts and the sun and the wind and the earth. So she just picked rocks instead. She strolled her tiny self all over the farm, probably feeling like she traversed the whole world when she was in her mother's sight the whole time, and collected every rock in that jar. All those rocks that look dull and grey to him held magic in her young eyes. They were the flowers of Fall and they made her smile. And when she brought them back inside, they made her mother smile, too. She told Beth that they were beautiful and would look so lovely in her room. And that made Beth proud as well as happy and she kept the jar ever since.

He imagined her older, maybe ten or eleven, on a bright summer day. The atmosphere was heavy with the kind of humidity even Georgians can't stand and Beth was in nothing but a swimsuit. Something with a floral print or maybe plain polka dots. Something full-piece and modest and totally age appropriate. Something Herschel would approve of. She was old enough now to think that pigtails were for babies and had her hair tied back in a single ponytail instead, but the baubles on the elastic remained. She was still a young girl and she liked her pretty things. The plastic shapes were gone though and had been replaced by simple beads. The kind that looked juvenile to an adult, but that a kid her age would think were mature.

He imagined she was with Maggie down by the swimming hole on the back of the Greene family property. Maggie had grown distant since becoming a teenager: stopped considering Beth a friend and started seeing her as an annoyance. Dismissing her as just a little kid. They used to have fun together all the time, but when Maggie had started high school, she'd stopped playing games and telling stories. Stopped watching Beth's private dance recitals and reading the little magazines she'd sometimes make at her desk. Stopped sharing a bed on cold nights and whispering her secrets in the dark. And Beth hadn't understood why. Hadn't understood why she wasn't good enough for her sister anymore. And it had hurt her. Which is why that was such a special summer: because Maggie had actually spent time with her again. She wasn't caught up in boys and school and teenage drama. She was back to being a friend and Beth had relished it. They were in the dwindling days of August, though, and it would soon be time to go back to school. And Beth knew that when they did, she'd lose Maggie's friendship once more, so she wanted to remember that day. Wanted to have a memento of that unbearably hot, but beautiful, day when she'd been able to laugh and gossip and horse around foolishly with her sister for what might have been the last time. So she collected those rocks from around the water's edge and wrapped them up in her towel. (Maggie asked her what she was doing, but she kept it to herself. She didn't want to spoil the memory by being teased or made fun of, which she was pretty sure her sister would do.) And, when she got home, she put all the rocks in the jar and placed them on her shelf: a lasting monument to the love and loss of her childhood with Maggie.

He imagined her as a teenager herself, maybe a year before the turn, on a cool Spring day. She was in a sundress that came down just a little past her knees. Something respectable enough for church but that could still turn slightly scandalous if the wind hit it right. Something in a light color, maybe a pale blue or a minty green. Something with a little detail, some small print you wouldn't be able to make out from a distance, but would be charming and delicate when you saw it up close. She had a cardigan on top to protect her from the chill. Something plain but of high quality. Something that had probably been too big when she'd first gotten it, but that she's grown into now and loves. Something a little worn, but in a way that feels comforting. Something that makes her look forward to brisk weather and made rub her hands unconsciously over her arms when she slipped it on that day.

He imagined it was a Saturday and she was with her best friend. They'd known each other since elementary school where they had bonded over a shared love of books and a mutual hatred of a boy named Caleb. Beth's friend was a little older than her, though, and had just gotten her driver's license. She'd been given permission to drive her brother's truck over to Beth's house to do homework and Beth had been given permission to be picked up and taken to the library to study, so they were unsupervised and independent for the day. It was a teenage classic and the kind of thing that only worked because they were such good, well-behaved girls. And since they were such good, well-behaved girls, it felt like a major rebellion. They hit the road together and drove without any destination in mind, just thrilled to be free and in control. It was the first time Beth had ever really felt like an adult. Or the first time she got a sense of what being an adult _might_ feel like. And, even though she felt guilty for lying to her father, she was almost proud of herself for doing it. For not following his every direction and for making a choice of her own. She wasn't just Daddy's little girl, she was _Beth_ and she wanted to take charge of her life. They drove for hours, never going more than fifteen miles out of town, but feeling like they were on a cross-country adventure. The world felt different when they were the ones behind the wheel and even the old familiar sites of home seemed new. They stopped in at a popular teenage hangout in the woods and ate lunch on the truck's open tailgate. When they went to close it up, Beth noticed the rocks in the truck bed, maybe leftover from the landscaping the friend's brother did in his spare time. She gathered them up in the bag that had once held their lunch and brought them home with her at the end of the day, hidden in the backpack she'd taken with her under the pretense of doing school work. She put them in the jar as a reminder of that afternoon and, whenever she felt trapped or powerless or sick of being treated like a damn kid, she'd look at those rocks and remember the freedom she'd felt on the road and know that her sixteenth birthday was only a few months away.

He dreamed about those rocks the entire night, long after he forced himself to go to bed and try to get some sleep. And that became his new routine: he'd work on the house during the day and, at night, he'd pick an object in her room and while away the evening imagining stories behind it. There was the small pair of bongos decorated with daisy stickers sitting on the floor by the chair, that he liked to imagine her playing as a small child, thinking she was being quiet about it but actually making her parent rue the day they gave them to her. There were the three origami cranes on her desk, which he was pretty sure were supposed to symbolize good luck or grant wishes or do something else positive, that he liked to imagine a friend making for her during a troubling time and turning out to be just what she needed to feel better. There was the postcard on her dresser showing a beach at sunset with the message _Greetings from California_ emblazoned at the top, that he liked to imagine being sent to her by a vacationing relative back when she was still young enough to be excited by getting something in the mail. There was the small stuffed alligator on her nightstand that was missing it's right arm, but had it's wound sewn up with a thick red thread, that he liked to imagine was healed by Herschel when a young Beth had taken her injured animal to the vet.

He entertained himself for hours with these scenarios, spinning tale after tale. And it was so unlike him to do that, so unlike him to be able to look at a jar of rocks or a pair of bongos and see infinite worlds, that he wondered at times whether he was really the one telling these stories at all. Wondered if he was the true author of these narratives or if they were coming from someplace else entirely. Sometimes the stories would be so real, so vivid, and so utterly outside of his own realm of experience that he would think - and not just momentarily - that Beth was the one whispering them in his ear. That she was the ghostwriter of his little vignettes. That they were her way of keeping him company. Her way of putting good thoughts in his head and making him smile. It was just another one of his mystical notions, but he kept returning to it again and again. Because he just didn't believe he had it in him to manufacture those kind of tales. To bring himself that kind of comfort. Like so many other things those days, it may have seemed illogical, but Beth really did feel like the more likely culprit to him.

 _She_ actually made more sense.

Whether it was her or him or them both, though, it was the most treasured part of his new life. Item after item, story after story, he immersed himself in the fictitious adventures of his favorite girl and was constantly enthralled by her hypothetical history. It made him miss her all the more fiercely, of course, and sometimes the tears (and the rage) still came. But, when they did, he'd look at that empty frame over her sink and try to remind himself of how much worse it could have been. Tried to remember the time he'd had, rather than the time he'd lost. Tried to remind himself that he had _real_ stories, memories that he actually _did_ share with her.

Tried to be grateful that he knew that the toothpaste was the least valuable thing in that room, when he could have been so ignorant as to think it was the only thing of any value at all.

...

As time went on, and the condition of the house improved, Daryl became increasingly apprehensive about going into Beth's room. He kept adding things to his repair list and setting more and more distant goals for himself in a thinly veiled effort to put it off. He was afraid, but couldn't fully admit the fear, so he disguised his reluctance under the cloak of responsibility. Told himself it just wasn't time yet and there was still more that needed to be done. But, as was so often the case, the only obstacle in his path was him. He just couldn't bring himself to cross that threshold. He was terrified that, if he stepped too far into that magic bubble, the spell would be broken. Afraid that all the stories he'd been telling himself, the stories he didn't understand how he was even concocting, would stop him.

A jar of rocks would just be a jar of rocks again.

And he couldn't handle that. He _needed_ those stories. Needed that sense of connection, imaginary though it may be. So, he distracted himself with other tasks instead: one of which was collecting all of the mementos he'd promised to pick up for Maggie. She'd given him a list their last night at dinner, describing exactly what she wanted and where he'd be able to find it. And the first thing she'd wanted was her mother's bible. It had pained Herschel too much to see it after her death, so it was in a box of memories on the top shelf in his closet. When Daryl went up there to take a look, though, he discovered that there were _lots_ of boxes of memories in Herschel's closet: boxes belonging to his first late wife, but also to all of his children, too. And the title on one of those boxes immediately caught his eye:

 _Beth's Artwork, Ages 5-10_

He barked out a rough laugh in a rush of both excitement and surprise. Shock, really, because he couldn't believe he'd never considered such a thing. He'd spent months thinking about every little fragment of Beth he might be able to scrape out of that house. Every little thing she might have bought or worn or touched. But he'd never thought about her childhood art. In retrospect, it was a perfectly logical blindspot. Art was not an acceptable pastime in the Dixon household and, even at a very young age, it had been made quite clear that creativity was for girls and for pussies. Daryl only ever drew in school, when he was forced to, and never brought any of his work home. If he had, it wouldn't have gone in a box, it'd have gone in the trash and he might have been sporting a bruise the next day.

But, _of course,_ Beth's art had gone in a box, he thought. Of course, it had. She'd probably waited patiently for her daddy to get off work so she could show him her latest creation. He'd probably told her they were wonderful and praised her talent and imagination. Probably put them on the refrigerator so she would know just how proud he was. And then in a few days, or a few weeks, the refrigerator would be full and her mother would put everything in the box and the cycle would start all over again.

Beth wasn't a Dixon. She was loved and she was cherished.

Of course her art had gone in a box.

He pulled it down from the shelf with slightly shaking hands and walked back to Beth's room. He sat down in the hallway across from her door, crossed his legs, and put the box in his lap. He paused for a minute and took a few steadying breaths. This was the first time he was going to actually _touch_ something of hers. The first time he was going to do more than just look and it felt like an important moment. It felt meaningful beyond the inherent meaning of whatever lay underneath that lid.

When he finally worked up the nerve to open the box and start going through it, he was stunned. He knew Beth was a creative person. She wrote, she sang, she did art projects with the children at the prison. She turned part of the library into a studio and somehow got the kids to coax mini-masterpieces out of the the random collection of office supplies they found on runs. She made strange but captivating little toys for Judith and decorated her cell with all sorts of random objects: turning a cold, grey space into a warm den of color. She was an artistic soul, so he'd been expecting her drawings to be pretty good.

They weren't.

They were terrible.

Absolutely fucking _terrible_.

He looked at the label on the box three times just to make sure he had the ages right because he really couldn't believe that she was that old when she did them. If he didn't know better, he'd think they were made by a child with a problem. A kid with some sort of deficit. Something that made it difficult for them to grasp a crayon or control their arms or even perceive basic color and shape.

They were disasters.

The box was page after page of carefully curated disasters.

And he loved every single one.

Their subject matters might have been completely indiscernible, but they were lively and vibrant and full of energy. There was a real _feeling_ behind them. A pulse. They looked nothing like what he'd have thought she'd produce, but they had a spirit that felt just like her. He thought they were fantastic. And he loved that the story he'd told himself about Herschel's reaction to them was probably still completely true. He probably _did_ beam at these monstrosities. Probably _did_ say they were beautiful and that they brightened up the kitchen. And her mother had clearly thought that they were worth saving, too. Worth keeping and treasuring and protecting in a nice sturdy box. And, while that could have made him resentful about his own childhood, it didn't. It just made him happy that Beth had had that kind of life.

Happy that that sweet little girl with no talent was probably never made to feel that way.

As he kept going through the box, and saw almost nothing he could recognize, he began to wonder whether he was being fair in his assessment. He found it so hard to believe she could have really been _that_ bad at something. He certainly didn't think she was perfect, didn't think she was good at everything, but he'd never seen her actually _fail_. He'd seen her be _inexperienced_ , but he'd never seen her perform below expectations. Maybe he was judging her too harshly, he thought. He wasn't exactly sure what was expected for a child that age, after all. He'd never had kids of his own and probably didn't pay enough attention to the ones at the prison. Maybe he was wrong.

Maybe this _was_ normal.

He remembered that Maggie had a similar box in the closet, so he went to retrieve it and returned back to his perch in the hall. Going through Maggie's things had no emotional significance to him and he was able to open it up and start investigating right away. It only took a few drawings to convince him that he hadn't been too critical of Beth at all. If anything, he'd probably been going a little easy on her. Even though he'd never considered Maggie to be a particularly artistic person (and didn't think Maggie considered herself to be one either), it was clear that she'd had skill. Her pieces were unquestionably the works of a child, with wobbly lines and poor use of perspective, but the subjects being depicted were obvious. Houses and dogs. Rainbows and butterflies. He could easily identify them all.

He took one from each box to compare side-by-side and, when he held them up to view, they caught the light just right and he noticed there was writing on the back. Each one had a title and a note about the age of the artist, which he assumed had been recorded by Beth's mother.

The one in his left hand was _Me at Grandpa Buck's House by Maggie, Age 9_

The one in his right hand was _Fancy Raccoons Playing Potato Basketball by Beth, Age 8_

He almost died when he read that, laughing louder than he had since before Beth was kidnapped. Because he could have stared at that thing for the rest of his life and never come close to guessing even one of those _words_. To be fair, he wasn't sure what fancy raccoons playing potato basketball _would_ actually look like, but he was pretty confident that what Beth put on paper wasn't it. And that was so endearing to him. So delightful that she had such a creative spirit and no way to back it up. Maggie's art was technically sound, but completely uninspired. Beth's art was a technical nightmare, but the imagination behind it was incredible.

" _Fuck_ , girl," he laughed, grinning widely and shaking his head in disbelief. "Thought horseracin' was the sport of kings, but you done stole the crown with this shit. Ain't even a _contest_. Who wants to see a pony run around in a fuckin' circle when you can watch a fancy 'coon take a tater to the hoop?"

"Fuckin' _visionary_ , girl," he chuckled, failing to inject any sarcasm behind the remark. "Thank god your mama wrote down just what the _fuck_ it was you were _seein'_ , 'cause you sure as hell can't tell by lookin' at it, but you definitely had the vision. Can't argue that."

He eagerly began to look at the title of each piece, titles it was clear were provided by the artist herself, and discovered they were all similarly and (to him) enchantingly bizarre: _Starface Ninja Fights the Boogeyman, Sweet Potato Sunday School_ , _Firedog Fourteen_ , _Banana Wedding Day, Robot Detectives at Church, Turtle Maggie and the Magic Egg, Purple Mountain Tow Truck_ (in which Beth inexplicably seemed to use every color _except_ for purple), _Den of the Sofa Dragon_ , _Toaster Monster Table Manners_ , _Captain Mermaid's Christmas Tree_ , and on and on, including what would become his all-time favorite:

 _Rocket Squirrel's Trip to the Moon by Beth, Age 7_

He couldn't tell which part was the rocket and which part was the squirrel - he could barely even tell which part was the fucking _moon_ \- but he adored it more than he thought would be possible. Loved it more than anything he'd ever had except Beth's photo. He imagined her as a small child explaining the drawing to Herschel, bouncing on her little heels from excitement as she described the rocket squirrel's mission. He saw her, all animated, eyes bright and gleaming, waving her hands wildly as she detailed the thrilling adventure that happened in her head. Saw her little face scrunch up as she tried to make the sound of the engine and break into a radiant smile as she announced the squirrel's success.

He decided that that was their routine. Knowing Herschel as a father, he'd probably been legitimately interested in these tales, but Daryl imagined that it had likely begun out of necessity. Beth's drawings were so bad that there's no way her father could have figured them out without her assistance. He'd probably started asking her to tell him the stories behind them just so he'd have something to fucking _say_. And Daryl absolutely loved that notion. Loved the idea of a completely dumbfounded Herschel staring at these drawings, grasping for words with a beaming little Beth right in front of him eagerly awaiting her daddy's praise. And it warmed him to think that, instead of just passing it off with a _that's nice, doodlebug_ or _how pretty, honey_ , Herschel had really engaged her instead. Had her tell him the exciting tales that her magical mind dreamed up, but that her sweet, clumsy hands couldn't capture.

And Daryl started to imagine her doing doing the same for him, too. He saw a bouncy little blonde girl passionately relate the saga behind _Glitter Cat Wrestles the Tortilla_. Saw her irrepressibly joyful face struggle to convey anger as she detailed the animosity between the characters and throw her whole body into the story as she gave the play-by-play of their epic bout. Saw her glow with pride at having his undivided attention, watching him wait with bated breath to find out who won. Was it Glitter Cat? Or the Tortilla? He saw a tiny Beth fail to repress her giggles as she retold the wacky events of _Wombat Wednesday_ and become mischievous as she explained why there was _Trouble at the Armadillo Car Wash._ Saw her practically dance with girlish glee as she described all the fun that was had at _Lady Rooster's Princess Pajama Party_ and struggle to build dramatic tension as she revealed the intriguing backstory on how _The_ _Jelly Ghost and the Chicken Nugget_ became friends _._

Saw her sunny expression turn confused when she had to explain that _Muffin Jazz_ was something you ate _and_ something you listened to.

Even though the drawings were a window onto a much younger Beth, even though they were further removed from the woman he loved, he discovered that he almost liked the stories they inspired more than the ones spawned by the items in her room. Not because they were more touching, but because they weren't colored by any sense of loss. The questions they raised probably _never_ could have been answered. Beth had likely forgotten all the real stories behind the pictures long before they'd even met, probably didn't even remember doing most of them at all. It wouldn't have mattered if she'd lived, he would have never known their real meaning.

Her death didn't impact his understanding of the drawings and was actually the only reason he got to see them in the first place.

Everything in that box was something gained.

He went through picture after picture, completely enamored by the fact that, while her work never got better, her creativity never diminished. Maggie's art never rivaled Beth's in terms of imagination, but her early pieces were somewhat fanciful: shaky but legible depictions of unicorns and castles and fairies. As she grew older, though, her work lost what little spark it had and became increasingly competent renderings of increasingly commonplace things: her house, her bedroom, her family. Beth's spark didn't fade over the years, though. She was never able to get her ideas on paper, but those ideas never stopped. She was drawing a indecipherable mess called _Taco Spiderweb_ at five and a complete trainwreck called _Harvey the Haunted Haircut_ at ten.

She was timeless.

She was terrible.

She was Beth.

And it was the best day he'd had since she died.

He spent hours pouring over each drawing, imagining a little Beth telling him story after story, enthusiastically describing the worlds contained in each of her beautiful catastrophes. When he was done going through the box (multiple times), he put all the pictures carefully back inside.

Except for one.

He walked down the hall and propped _Rocket Squirrel's Trip to the Moon_ up on the dresser in the guest room, right next to the can of fruit cocktail, so he could see it every day.

...

The next morning, he was out hunting in the woods just off the back of the farm when the squirrel he was aiming for darted away at the last second: missing his bolt by a fraction of an inch. As soon as it happened, he heard Beth laughing and assuring him sweetly, _It's okay, Daryl, no one can catch a rocket squirrel._ He smiled broadly and shook his head, retrieving his bolt and reloading his crossbow in preparation for the next attempt. From that point on, any quick-footed rodent that evaded him was a _rocket squirrel_ and, for the first time in his life, he was happier when he missed his target than when he actually hit it.

* * *

Yeah, like I said, this chapter kind of feels like the literary equivalent of one of Beth's drawings to me (let's call it _Trouble in Type-y Town_ ): I had the ideas, I just couldn't seem to get them on paper like I wanted to. But hopefully you were able to channel your inner Daryl and managed to like it despite of all that. (And hopefully I'll be feeling better soon and get what passes for my mojo back.)

Anyway, thanks again for reading a bittersweet story with only one living character and virtually no dialogue or action. Seriously, this was like 12,000 words and a guy stands in a doorway and opens two boxes. It's the least compelling narrative in the world. I don't know why I'm writing it. And I really have no idea why you're reading it, but thank you and I hope you stick around. :)


	4. Chapter 4

_Hello there, lovely people! Thank you so much for continuing to read this little story. I really appreciate you giving it your time and I'm especially grateful to those of you who have left such kind reviews. Your support really means a lot to me._

 _I'm still feeling really sick and wrote this chapter in totally random and isolated little bursts. When I finally stood back and looked at it as a whole, I realized that I'd taken a lot of little side trips to Tangent Town. They were scenic little detours, though, so I decided to keep them. But in terms of plot, this chapter didn't end up advancing the narrative quite as far as I'd anticipated. So, sorry if it feels like I'm testing your patience by making an already slow story even slower...that's just what Daryl made me do and, in my weakened state, I couldn't refuse him. :)_

* * *

He wasn't lonely.

At all.

It'd been almost three weeks since he'd returned to the Greene family farm, and over two months since he'd left Alexandria, and he wasn't lonely at all. He hadn't seen or spoken to another living person in sixty-three days. He was hundreds of treacherous miles from the only people on earth he could ever trust. He was about as alone as a person could be and yet he didn't miss a soul.

He didn't miss anyone except Beth.

And he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but he was grateful either way. In a corner of his mind that he'd tried to ignore (but had never been able to fully deny), he'd been afraid that the isolation of the farm would drive him to despair. Afraid that it would just accentuate his desolation by giving it a physical form. Afraid that this journey that he'd envisioned as a glorious escape would reveal itself in truth to be a brutal exile: a self-imposed sentence to solitary confinement that he wouldn't be strong enough to handle. As the days wore on, though, he found that he didn't feel isolated in the least. He actually felt _connected_. He felt connected to the world in a way he hadn't since Beth's death. He might have been completely alone, but he felt like he was a _part_ of something there. He felt like he was more a part of something being by himself in that house than he'd felt being surrounded by his family back in Alexandria.

And he felt more at _home_ there, too. And not just more at home than he'd felt in Alexandria, which wasn't remotely surprising, but more at home than he'd ever felt _anywhere_ , which definitely was a shock. When he'd imagined coming back to the farm, he'd expected that he'd feel like a visitor. He'd worried briefly that he'd feel like an intruder, but since he had Maggie's permission (if not her total blessing), he was hoping that he'd feel like a guest. And, for the first week or so, he had. He'd felt welcome in that home from the very beginning: from the moment he saw its doors thrown open in warm invitation, he'd felt comfortable being there. One day he realized, though, that he no longer felt like it was just _acceptable_ for him to be living in that house. He felt like he was _meant_ to be living in that house.

That house was where he _belonged_.

And that hadn't even occurred to him as a possibility. The only place where he'd ever felt like he'd belonged before was the prison. That was the only place where he'd ever felt wanted and respected and safe. (As safe as a person could feel in an apocalypse, anyway, which was still far safer than he'd ever felt in the past. Whether it was living under the threat of his violent father, his unstable brother, or the parade of degenerates that had followed both of them around, Daryl had never felt secure in any of the places he'd charitably called _home_. His vigilance before the turn hadn't been confined to shifts in a watchtower: he'd been on guard every minute of his life.) So, the prison held an almost mythical status in his mind. It had been this bizarre and completely unexpected harbor that he somehow found in a life of storm, this magical place that sheltered him and nurtured him for a little while and then disappeared so suddenly, it was like it had never existed at all. It had been remarkable, unbelievable, and more than enough to convince him that there would be no more to the story. That was it. That was the brief but beautiful tale of _The Time When Daryl Belonged_.

It was short, it was sweet, and it was over.

He was never going to feel like that again.

Yet, there he was, living in the Greene's guest bedroom and fucking _feeling_ like that again. And it was even better than it had been at the prison. More meaningful and more intense. And not just because the Greene family home was inherently special in all the ways a correctional facility intentionally was not, but because _what_ he felt connected to there was so much more special, too. So much more important. He belonged to something greater there than he ever had at the prison and he was a much greater part of it as well.

In that house, it was just him and Beth.

And, even if she was there solely in spirit, it was still the most significant relationship he'd ever had.

And it really was a relationship. He tried not to think about it that way, but there was no denying that the routine of his new life was a somewhat sad parody of a working man's marriage. Like a doting husband, he'd spend some quiet moments with Beth in the morning, lingering in her doorway and enjoying her space. (Sometimes telling her what he had planned for the day, too, though he tried to keep that to a minimum.) Then he'd go to work until sundown: toiling away the hours fixing up the property and performing all the various and time-consuming tasks required for survival. He'd play the role of provider, taking care of their house and their basic needs. And, when the day was through, he'd come back home to Beth and they'd spend the evening together. He'd ponder her things, tell himself stories, and fill his mind with thoughts of her. Then he'd shuffle off to sleep, sometimes even peacefully so, and wake up to start the whole cycle all over again.

Other than her obvious absence, the relationship did have one major constraint: he still hadn't been able to bring himself to enter her room. Was still terrified that bridging that barrier would shatter the spell he was under. He _wanted_ to go in there, wanted to go in there so desperately, but he wanted to keep what he had even more. He'd found a kind of comfort in that house that he'd never thought he'd have and he just couldn't put that at risk. So, he confined himself to her door: sometimes cursing his foolish superstition, sometimes praising his respectful self-control, but always knowing he was really powerless to do anything else.

For the moment, at least, he was stuck.

All things considered, though, it wasn't a bad place to be stuck, so he'd resigned himself to his position. He'd always been pretty good at that: at accepting life's limitations and disappointments. He'd had plenty of practice at adapting to sub-optimal conditions, both before and after the end of the world, and he'd rarely had so many other things to console himself with when he did. So, even though it pained him to be trapped in that doorway, it really wasn't all that hard in the end.

And, while her room seemed untouchable, the rest of the house did not. His exploration of the place had begun as a search for Maggie's requested heirlooms, but as he'd grown to feel like he truly belonged there, the investigation took on a life of its own. Of _his_ own. That was his _home_ and he could go into any room (except hers), open any drawer, go through any box, thumb through any book he wanted, for whatever reason he wanted, or for no reason at all. He didn't need permission or an excuse to do anything there. (And, though he'd felt a similar freedom in hundreds of abandoned homes over the past few years, what he felt there was a different sensation entirely. In those other houses, he'd felt like he'd had the right to explore because he'd had the right to survive and nothing in those homes had mattered to anyone else anymore. Like so many other things in his life, the liberty to go through those places had felt like something he'd had simply because he was alive and because no one else wanted it. In the Greene home, though, it was the opposite. The things in that house still mattered and the right to go through them was a _privilege_ that he'd been given _personally_. A privilege that he had not just because he was human, but because he was _Daryl Dixon_. And he wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve that, wasn't even sure that he _did_ deserve that, but he felt the truth of it all the same. That was his home.)

Her box of childhood art had obviously been his first discovery and he'd revisited that several times, eventually taking out a few more pieces to hang up in his room and one to stick on the fridge. (It was something that he'd seen on countless family refrigerators and something he decided simply belonged on theirs, too: a Thanksgiving turkey made from a child's handprint. He'd seen hundreds of such works in the past, even vaguely recalled making a few of his own, but Beth's turkey was uniquely and delightfully hers: largely because she was nine years old when she did it and still couldn't trace her own fucking hand. It looked like she had seven fingers and a viciously broken thumb and the resulting creature was a piece of poultry that even a walker wouldn't eat. It was gleeful in its deformity, though, and it made him smile every time he saw it. Every single time.)

His next big find had been the family photo albums. Like almost everything else in the Greene home, they were high quality pieces: beautiful volumes that had obviously been put together with great care and designed to last for generations. There were seven books in total, but the the family had a long history and only the latter four included the years of Beth's life. He'd wanted to skip ahead to those albums, but Maggie had asked him to retrieve some older pictures - photos of her mother and her own early childhood - so he'd forced himself to begin chronologically. To start at the very beginning and pour over all the pre-Beth years.

And he was so glad that he had. There were some great shots in there of a young Herschel that really warmed his heart and made him see the man in a new, but just as flattering, light. Photos that weren't on Maggie's list, but that he was sure she had to have all the same (or that he'd happily take if she wasn't interested.) There was a one of him in his early twenties, looking shockingly fit and leaning against a shiny black truck: beer bottle in his hand and a badass smirk on his face. As with every photo, the details were written on the back, but no words were really needed to tell the story. That had been the day he'd gotten his first new vehicle and he'd been proud as fucking hell. There was one of him a few years later, standing beside the same truck, which now had a crisp white cross painted on the door: the words _Coweta County Veterinary Clinic_ stenciled at the top and _Herschel Greene, DVM_ stamped at the bottom. He was just as proud in that one, but far less smug, and the maturity he'd acquired along with his degree was obvious. There was one of him in his mid-thirties, standing on the front porch of their home, dressed in his Sunday best with Maggie's mother by his side. She was a beautiful woman, slightly curvaceous with a glowing complexion, and had clearly put a lot of effort into her appearance that day as well: her rich dark hair was elegantly done and her stylish clothes were impeccable. On the surface it was just a photo of a handsome couple on a lovely afternoon, but what had initially caught Daryl's attention were their expressions. Herschel was sporting a devilish grin and his wife wore a beaming smile, but her eyes were wide open in shock. It had taken Daryl a few moments to realize what was really happening in the picture: the arm that Herschel appeared to have wrapped around his wife's waist was actually reaching down and pinching her ass. He never would have imagined Herschel to be that kind of a flirt, especially with a camera on him, but he was so tickled to be wrong. He thought it was so charming that he'd teased his wife like that. (And had been delighted to discover that his wife had teased him in return. When he'd looked at the back, he'd seen that the photo was captioned in what he assumed was her flowing hand: _Herschel Demonstrating Why He Can't Be Trusted, May 8, 1979_.) They'd been married for several years by the time the photo had been taken and Herschel was still gleefully trying to make his girl blush. And Daryl loved that. Loved it on its own merits and loved it because he'd liked to make Beth blush, too. (He could only dream of being bold enough to pinch her ass, but if they'd have been married, it would have been that kind of a dream, and that's definitely what he would have done.)

His favorite photo in the early volumes by far, though, had been taken at the very tail-end of the pre-Beth years. In those final pre-Beth months right before she entered the world. It was a picture of her mother in their front yard on a brilliant winter's day. There was a thin blanket of rare Georgia snow on the ground and she was standing in profile with her head turned away from the camera, seemingly looking at her footprints leading back up to the house. Her gloved hands were resting lovingly on her rounded belly, seven months pregnant with Beth, in a gesture that looked completely unconscious and all the sweeter for it. The wind was whipping open the edges of her powder blue coat and blowing her long blonde hair away from her face and, though her features were largely obscured by the angle, just seeing the edge of her smile was enough to know it was radiant.

While it was clear that Beth was her mother's daughter, the two women hadn't shared a particularly striking resemblance. They'd had almost identical coloring and very similar figures, but their faces had been quite different: with Beth displaying far more of her father's characteristics. In that picture, though, those differences were almost imperceptible. At that particular angle, in that small sliver of space, in that one expression captured in that one moment in time, they looked exactly alike. That was the face of the woman he loved with her same golden hair and her same lithe form, made even more feminine and inviting by a swollen belly he'd never actually seen on his girl, but had surprised the hell out of himself by imagining on more than one occasion. And she was standing in front of the house he now proudly called home: a home that had once been hers and in a different world, in a dream existence, could have been _theirs_.

And she was happy and her life was beautiful and her husband loved her so much.

He'd cried like a baby over that photo. It wasn't that he'd really wanted children, he'd actually been decidedly against the idea for most of his life, but he imagined that _Beth_ would have wanted children. She would have wanted to be a mother and she would have been so good at it, too. She would have been such a wonderful mother. Warm and compassionate and nurturing. Supportive and kind and joyful. She would have been wonderful in every way, And he would have loved to have been a part of that. Would have loved to have had such a powerful and permanent connection to her. To have had a part of him live and grow inside of her and to have her love and cherish it forever. To have loved and cherished it right along with her.

To have done that together.

He would have loved that. It would have terrified him, but if Beth had wanted it, he would have welcomed the terror. And he honestly thought he could have been pretty good at it, too. It shocked him to think that, but he did: he truly believed he could have been a good father. Despite his overwhelming insecurities, he almost always succeeded when he applied himself to something and there's _nothing_ he would have ever applied himself to more than that. If he'd been a position to be the father of Beth's children, he would have given it _everything_ he fucking had. Nothing would have stopped him from doing it well. As well as he _possibly_ could have, as well as she would have deserved for him to do.

He would have been good at it.

 _They_ would have been good at it.

And she would have been happy and her life would have been beautiful and her husband would have loved her so much.

That picture was a portrait of a future that could never be and seeing it had wrecked him at first. It had felt like some sort of cosmic tease: like the universe taunting him with a vision of the life he'd never know. Showing him exactly what he was missing out on, just in case he hadn't already understood the full magnitude of his loss. But he'd eventually been able to get past the heartache and appreciate all the other emotions the photo evoked. And so many of those were good. Deeply and thoroughly good. Because in its own strange way, the picture wasn't just a portrait of a stolen future, it was also a reminder of a treasured past. Beth might have never been pregnant, might have never actually borne a child, but she _had_ been a mother. She'd been a mother to Judith and Daryl's entire relationship with her had begun with her taking on that role.

He'd known Beth for about nine months when Lori died (maybe a little more if Judy was truly Rick's daughter and a little less if she was actually Shane's.) He'd known her for all that time, but he'd barely spoken to her at all. And he'd definitely never _engaged_ with her. He'd only communicated with her out of practical necessity or in the one-word acknowledgements required for basic human civility. Judith's birth had changed all that, though. Daryl had loved that baby from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her and had felt fiercely protective of her from the beginning. Partly because of Rick's inability to take on that responsibility for himself, but largely out of the same compulsion to stand up for the weak and the innocent that had led Merle to mock him for being _the sweet one_ and had driven his father to beat him for being a pussy. Judy had been small and she'd been helpless. She'd been completely defenseless in a cruel and vicious world and he hadn't been about to let _anything_ fucking happen to her. He'd had a lot of duties at the prison, performed a lot of vital tasks, but the day she was born Judy became his number one priority.

And she became Beth's number one priority, too.

They'd been two people who'd barely paid attention to each other before, but they'd suddenly shared the same mission and it had been equally important to them both.

Though her well-being had been his primary concern, Daryl hadn't played a direct role in Judith's care. He'd made sure she was safe by making sure _everyone_ was safe and he'd made sure she had what she needed by prioritizing her supplies on all their runs (or by making special runs just for her.) And that's how he'd started talking to Beth. He'd had no experience with childcare and, since she'd been the _de facto_ parent, she's been who he'd turned to to find out what Judith needed. She'd been his baby consultant and their early conversations had revolved solely around diapers and formula and rash cream. Just brief little exchanges of her telling him which kind of bottles to look for and him telling her which stores they had left to raid. It hadn't taken long for them to become more substantive, though. Beth had started sharing details about Judith's day: cute little stories about the strange things that had made her laugh or random suppositions about the mysterious reasons that she'd cried. She'd talked about their activities, their grand adventures to the laundry room and their latest favorite game (classics like _How Hard Can You Pull Beth's Hair_ , _Make the Biggest Mess Possible_ , _Bang the Desk as Loud as You Can_ , and the long running hit _Put Anything That Can Possibly Fit into Your Mouth into Your Mouth_.) She'd loving bragged about all of Judith's little milestones (real and imagined) and spoken with anticipation about what she might do next.

And, to his surprise, Daryl had found himself really enjoying those (mostly one-sided) conversations. He'd found himself looking forward to those rundowns in a world where there was very little to look forward to at all. And he'd started checking in every day. Not for very long, just for a few minutes. Just long enough to soak up a little bit of Judith's goodness and catch up on the slow but sweet news of her little life. And, though it had been the smallest part of his day, it had probably been the most treasured. He'd loved those shared moments in Beth's cell. He'd loved being around the baby and had begun to really like being around Beth, too. She'd always been outgoing and he'd always been reserved, so he'd learned a lot about her during his visits. Not a lot about her personally, they'd only ever really talked about Judith or events at the prison, but a lot about her character. Over months of brief but illuminating little interludes, he'd discovered what a caring and selfless person she was. Discovered how considerate she could be even when she was stressed, how understanding she could be even when she was disappointed, how happy she could be when someone else had a victory, how genuinely she could ache for them when they had a loss.

He'd discovered she was so much more than he'd ever given her credit for (to the extent that he'd ever even thought about her at all.)

Of course, he'd later learn just how _little_ he understood then. How much he'd still been underestimating her, still been underappreciating her. How much he'd still had left to discover (and how much he'd now never discover at all.) At the time, though, it had been a lot. It had been enough for her to take a far too small, but still quite special, place in his heart: a heart that had very few special places in it. He hadn't loved her then, didn't fall in love with her until after the prison fell (or at least didn't realize it), but he'd liked her more than he would have expected and had felt a kind of affection for her that he'd never really felt for anyone else.

And it had all started with a baby.

He first saw Beth, really and truly _saw_ Beth, when he'd started seeing her as a mother and that picture of a pregnant Annette, in its own warped and wonderful way, was such a powerful symbol of that. He could see Beth cradling Judith in the way Annette cradled her beautifully rounded belly. Could feel the warmth he always felt entering Beth's cell at the end of the day, that intoxicating warmth generated by her welcoming smile and Judy's tinkling laughter, in the joy that radiated off of Annette despite the obvious winter chill. He could hear the sound of Beth cheerfully praising Judy's latest accomplishment as he imagined Annette excitedly announcing that she'd just felt the baby kick.

That photo reminded him of all those cherished moments, all those unexpected revelations, that formed the foundation of his friendship with Beth.

A friendship that turned into a love he thought he'd never know.

And that was the other thing about the picture, the other reason it was so enthralling to him: seeing Beth as a mother hadn't just been the first time he'd seen her as a person, it'd been the first time he'd her as a _woman_. His entire awareness of her as a sexual being had also been a direct result of watching her with Judy. He'd always thought she was pretty, of course, but he'd thought she was pretty in the way that Carl was short and Michonne was black and T-Dog was kind of stocky. It had just been an objective physical attribute of hers. There had been no significance attached to it and it had inspired no thoughts or reflections on his part. She was pretty: he'd noted it and moved on. That all changed one random night, though, when he'd gone to check in on the baby and happened to walk in on the two of them sleeping.

He'd been visiting her and Judy for months at that point and, while he truly saw her as _Beth_ by then, saw her as a real person that was unexpectedly and strangely something like a friend, she'd existed in his mind as a genderless creature. Lovely, but completely asexual. It hadn't been that late when he'd dropped by her cell that evening, had actually been fairly early, but Judith hadn't been sleeping well for days and had clearly been the one who'd set the schedule. Beth had been sitting in her chair, a peacefully dreaming Judith cradled to her chest, with her head leaned back against the wall, eyes closed and seemingly lost in peaceful dreams of her own. It had been such a small thing that triggered the switch for him in that moment. Such a small thing that lead to such a massive revelation. The revelation that Beth was a woman.

A woman he wanted.

And that small thing had been Judith's hand. She'd grabbed hold of Beth's breast to comfort her in her sleep, seized a tiny little fistful of flesh to soothe her in slumber, and the sight of that had hit him like a punch in the gut. It was perfectly normal infant behavior, of course, and something that he'd seen her do plenty of times before, but that night had been different. For some unknown reason, that night had different in every way. For some unknown reason that he never understood, no matter how much he thought about it and he'd thought about it a lot, he'd realized with a thundering ferocity in that instant that Beth had breasts. No, he'd known that already. He'd realized that Beth had _tits_. Beth had _beautiful_ little tits. Beth had beautiful little tits that were soft and warm and would feeling so fucking good in his hands, too. _Everything_ about her would feel so fucking good in his hands. Everything about her would feel so fucking good _everywhere_. It would feel so good be enveloped in all that softness and warmth. It would feel so good to be surrounded by all that sweetness and light.

It would feel so fucking good.

 _She_ would feel so fucking good.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

He'd been absolutely stunned by that reaction. Stunned to be standing there unable to steady his heavy breathing as vivid images of his big, rough hands palming her small, tender breasts burned themselves indelibly into his brain. He'd been desperately relieved that she'd been sleeping because he'd been frozen in her doorway for God knows how long, completely unable to move against the onslaught. And it hadn't just been shocking to be having those thoughts about Beth, it'd been shocking to be having those thoughts fueled by that particular scene. He'd been simply _astounded_ that the sight of a fucking baby grabbing the fully-clothed breast of a relatively unendowed girl had just become the most erotic thing he'd ever seen.

And, though other Beth-related imagery later stole that crown, at the time it truly was: it truly was the most erotic thing he'd ever seen. Inexplicably, but insanely, arousing. And that had made _no sense_ to him at all. None whatsoever. Everything about that scene, everything that was suddenly so achingly attractive to him, was something he'd never been attracted to before. The softness and the warmth. The gentleness and the comfort. The sweetness and the quiet femininity. He'd never associated any of those things with sex. He'd honestly never been that sexual of person, but he'd spent his entire life around stereotypical alpha-males, and stereotypical lowlifes, who had been very open about their own sexuality. He'd seen his father's porn before he'd known what sex really was and his brother's DVDs had been the regrettable soundtrack to much of his adult life. And, unsurprisingly, both of those men had had pretty dark tastes. Will Dixon's desires had been particularly cruel and violent, while Merle's had leaned more towards the demeaning and tasteless, but they'd shared a common thread of coldness and dehumanization. And while there had been a rational part of him that had known that sex wasn't always like that, a part of him that had known that all those minivan-driving soccer moms probably weren't getting whipped and choked by their husbands at night, probably weren't getting spat on and called sluts by those khaki-wearing office drones who held their hands at the mall, he really hadn't had much of a reference for anything different. His own real-life experiences had certainly never showed him. Though he'd never behaved in a way he thought was truly ugly, in a way that was mean-spirited or would actually hurt anyone, he'd always been rough. And his encounters with women had always been distant and impersonal, too. They'd deliberately brief and entirely mechanical affairs conducted with completely meaningless and instantly forgettable partners: enjoyable only in the most basic biological sense. And those women, the ones that lived in sleazy videos and slunked away with him to cheap hotel rooms, they hadn't been soft and warm. They hadn't been gentle and sweet. They hadn't been loving and caring and kind.

They hadn't been anything like Beth.

Anything at all.

And, while it had shaken him to his core, he later took an odd comfort in the fact that he could pinpoint that moment as the first time he'd been attracted to her. The first time he'd ever wanted her sexually. He was painfully aware of their age difference and couldn't help but feel perverted for lusting after such a young woman. He'd been forty even before the turn and she was a goddamn teenager: he was more than twice her age and his desire for her at times seemed almost predatory. Seemed like the kind of thing his father would do. The kind of thing even Merle _wouldn't_ do. Seemed disgusting. But whenever he felt particularly awful about fantasizing about someone so young (in scenarios that were often far from sweet and gentle), he'd try to remind himself that he never wanted her until he saw her like that: saw her in a scene that was inherently _adult_.

He was first attracted to her in a portrait of motherhood and being a parent is literally the opposite of being a child.

And that was another reason he loved that photo of Annette, yet another reason it was so precious to him: it was like having a picture of Beth as an adult. He hadn't been through all the albums yet, but he knew there couldn't be a single photo in that house of her older than a very young sixteen. The only picture he'd ever have of the _woman_ he loved was the one Glenn gave him. The one taken in a prison courtyard years after that house was abandoned and just a few months before his whole world fell apart. The one that had a permanent home in his breast pocket and was his hand's favorite resting place. Every other picture would be of her as a true teenager: not just chronologically, but in every sense. A picture of her when her biggest worries were pop quizzes and (probably never) missed curfews. A picture of her when she dreamed about getting a driver's license and moving away to college.

A picture of a young girl back in the old world.

So, once he'd gotten beyond his initial grief and bitterness, that photo had become one of his most treasured possessions. He'd been so grateful that it wasn't something he could imagine Maggie wanting and had taken immediate and proud ownership of it himself. He'd initially put it up in his bedroom, tucked into the frame around the dresser mirror, but eventually moved it to his pocket to lay next to his beloved Polaroid. He hadn't been sure what prompted him to make that change. Why his hand had reached for it that morning before he'd gone out hunting. Why he'd felt the need to bring it with him that day and why he'd felt the need to keep it with him ever since. He didn't really question it too intently, though. It felt right. He liked having it there and thought that maybe Beth would like it, too. In a strange way, she was reunited with her mother again. In a completely symbolic, but somehow still meaningful way, they were together and he was keeping them safe.

It was a cloyingly romantic notion, absolutely saccharine, but it worked for him.

He'd poured through all three albums of the pre-Beth years in one night, but when he saw the first photo of that sweet baby girl, with her rosy cheeks and those eyes he loved so much, he'd forced himself to slow down. Each volume had fifty pages and he'd decided to limit himself to ten a day. And that became a new part of his evening routine: he'd sit in her doorway and go through his allotted pages, imagining the moments surrounding each picture, then turn his attention over to her room and to her things and start dreaming of all the moments surrounding them as well. Some nights he'd get lucky and Beth would be in almost every photo, which happened most frequently in those first two years of her life. Other nights there would be more filler, with Beth taking a backseat to her siblings whose lives had been documented by their parents with similar commitment.

A commitment to equality he objectively applauded, but was selfishly disappointed by.

So far, he'd seen the first four and a half years of her life and they'd been a joy to witness. He'd seen her first disastrous attempt to eat solid food and the messy grin that had followed: her joy in the act undiminished by the failure. He'd seen her stare at her mother in open-mouthed disbelief as she took some of her first steps, both of them looking equally awed at the accomplishment. He'd seen her expression of wild-eyed wonder when she pet a horse for the first time and her pure delight when the creature nuzzled her tiny hand in response. He'd seen her dressed like a little fairy for Halloween, arms stretched out as if caught in mid-flight and smile so bright it was electric.

She'd been an _unbelievably_ cute child. Precious and sweet and simply beautiful. He really couldn't imagine anyone looking at those pictures and thinking any differently. They had a special significance to him, for sure, but he would have defied anyone not to be charmed by that little girl.

And she'd clearly been so happy, too. He knew that photo albums never told the whole story, of course: almost always displaying the past in its best, but least accurate, light. No one takes pictures of their worst moments and preserves them in their book of memories. Nevertheless, he believed those photos really were an accurate reflection of her life. He truly believed that she'd had a happy childhood. That she'd been a good and cheerful baby for her parents and that they'd be loving and nurturing to her in return. Surely there had been skinned knees and temper tantrums, fevers and sleepless nights, that had gone unrecorded. Minor pains and frustrations that were the missing chapters in the albums' sunny tale. Beyond such obvious omissions, though, he was convinced that the story told in those pictures was true.

That cute little girl with a constant smile had really been a cute little girl with a constant smile.

And she hadn't just been happy, she'd also been kind. Even at such a young age, her compassion and caring had been readily apparent. So many of the pictures caught her in small acts of sweet generosity: taking care of her injured stuff animals or cleaning her Grandpa's boots or bringing little gifts to her mother (silly, but heartfelt, kid things like a pencil eraser or an oddly shaped leaf.) When she wasn't doing something just for the joy of it, she was doing it for someone else. And she'd clearly taken a lot of joy in that, too. It was endearingly obvious that there had been a major overlap in those categories for her: the joyful and the giving had been pretty much the same.

The best example of that spirit by far, and his favorite photo of a young Beth to date, had been taken on Christmas morning when she was four years old. It was one in a series of pictures portraying a yuletide in the Greene house that was just as lovely as he would have imagined: a lush and gorgeous tree in the living room, beautifully decorated complete with an angel on top, with brightly wrapped presents littering the floor. Everyone was in their pajamas and it was clear from the somewhat groggy look on Herschel face in the first few shots that the children's excitement had gotten the day off to a very early start. Beth received several presents that year, including the brown bunny with the blue eyes that was still sitting on her chair upstairs, and she'd clearly been thrilled to get them all. Each photo of her opening a gift was a portrait of sheer enthusiasm and delight. In the last - and what became his favorite - one, though, she was over the fucking _moon_. Her luminous eyes, which took up nearly half her face at that age, were so shiny it looked like she was almost in tears. Her beaming smile was bigger than he'd ever seen (and for that little girl that was truly saying something.) And she was almost a couple feet off the ground, her arms thrown high in the air and her hair in a wild cloud around her head. She was literally jumping for joy. He hadn't been able to tell what present had so completely captured her little heart, so he'd taken the photo out of the album to look at the caption on the back. And, when he'd read the description, he'd fallen in love with her all over again: _Beth Excited Because Shawn Got a New Bike from Santa_. The happiest he'd ever seen that incredibly happy child and it was because she was happy for someone else. He'd seen the accompanying photo of Shawn and the boy was undeniably ecstatic, too, but Beth's reaction still had him beat. She was happier about Shawn getting _his_ gift than she'd been about getting any of her own. And she was happier than even _he_ was for getting the damn thing himself.

She was the best person he'd ever known.

She was the best person he'd ever known and the depth of her goodness had made his chest ache. That photo had literally _pained_ him, but it had been a sweet pain and he'd cherished it.

And the picture joined her drawings on his dresser and he enjoyed that sweet pain every day.

...

It was late afternoon, almost early evening, and he'd been hunting since dawn. He'd finally bagged the small doe he'd been tracking for hours and her meandering path through the woods had come to an end over four miles from the Greene family property. She might have been small, but she was big enough, and he wasn't about to carry the whole deer all the way back home, so he decided to field dress it and relieve himself of some of the unwanted weight. It was a task he'd performed so many times he could have done it in his sleep and, as he moved through the motions on pure muscle memory, his mind began to wander.

Elbow-deep in the doe's warm blood, he thought about the day that he'd taught Beth how to dress a squirrel: demonstrating the skill for her and then watching carefully as she'd repeated the process on a couple on her own. It'd been the first time she'd ever truly handled a dead animal. The first time she'd ever worked with one so intimately: skinning it and gutting it and ushering it through that transformation from once-living creature to meal ready eat. And she hadn't wanted to do it. She might have been used to walkers, used to dealing with far grislier creatures than a dead rodent, but the sensitive animal-lover within her (the part of her that, he now knew, made a cheese-themed disaster of drawing to cheer up her sick cat when she was seven) had been repulsed by the task. She hadn't wanted to do it at all. She'd wanted to be _able_ to do it, though. She'd wanted to be able to do it and her desire for the knowledge had outweighed her distaste for the activity. And, despite her revulsion, she'd given it her all. She'd tried her hardest to get it right and he'd admired that so much about her. Admired that she hadn't tried to speed her way through an unpleasant task: doing it half-assed just to get it behind her.

He hadn't been surprised by it in the least, but he'd been impressed by it all the same.

And what had struck him so much at the time was that he'd had the distinct feeling that she'd _wanted_ to impress him. He hadn't felt like she'd been _trying_ to impress him. Hadn't felt like she'd been behaving in a way that was artificial or calculated. And he hadn't felt like she'd wanted to impress him because she'd wanted to be flattered or praised. He'd felt like she'd wanted to impress him simply because his opinion had _mattered_ to her. She'd wanted him to think that she was capable and strong because he was capable and strong and she'd wanted him to see those qualities in her, too. She'd wanted his respect. _His_ respect.

Him.

Daryl Dixon.

And she'd had it. She'd had his respect. She'd already had it for quite awhile by that point. He'd never told her that, though, and he hadn't told her that day, either. (Never fucking _did_ tell her, to his endless regret.) Hadn't told her that she'd been damn near perfect at dressing those squirrels. That she'd been clean and precise and had barely let anything go to waste. That she'd done a far better job than Rick or Glenn had done the first time he'd shown them. (Had done far better than he'd done his first time, too, but he'd be a small child then and didn't think it was really a fair comparison. Mostly in the sense that it wasn't fair to diminish her accomplishment by saying that she'd done better than a first-grader.)

She'd done exactly as he'd instructed and, since he hadn't needed to correct anything, he'd stayed silent through her entire process. When she'd finally complete the task, she'd smiled softly to herself, looked over to him and waved her hand over the finished product as if offering them for his inspection.

 _Think that went alright. Seem okay to you?_

She'd done so well. She'd done so well at something she really hadn't wanted to do, really hadn't _needed_ to do, but had made herself do anyway. Made herself do so she could grow. So she could learn. So she could take care of herself and - though she'd never said it out loud, he knew it without a doubt - so she could help take care of him, too. She'd done so well and, when she'd ask him if she'd done alright, he'd just grunted and nodded his head. Grunted and nodded his head and told her that he was fucking hungry so he'd like to cook the damn things already if she was done playing around.

 _Bastards coulda been in my belly twenty minutes ago. Slowest fuckin' butcher I've ever seen, girl. Been fuckin' torture to watch that shit._

It'd hadn't been torture at all, of course. It'd been a pleasure. It'd been wonderful to watch her expression ebb and flow between disgust and determination, to watch her hands dance in careful and controlled movements, to watch her catch and self-correct her few small mistakes and do even better on the second squirrel than she'd done on the first. It'd hadn't been torture at all. But she had been slow and he had been really fucking hungry. So, even though he'd been teasing her, he'd done a pretty poor job of conveying that. His tone had been harsh, his face completely flat, and he'd snatched up the meat and started putting it on spits without giving her a second glance.

And she'd just laughed.

She'd laughed brightly and beautifully and agreed that it was well past time to eat so they'd better hurry up. She was hungry, too, and those squirrels were going to be _delicious_. She'd seen through his demeanor. She'd known that he'd been teasing her. And she hadn't just known that he'd been teasing her, she'd been satisfied with that as his response. She hadn't been upset that she'd gone without praise or without any real acknowledgement of her performance at all. She'd known that she wasn't going to get that from him and that had been just fine by her. And not fine because she hadn't cared what he'd thought - because she _had_ cared, she'd cared a lot, he'd been almost sure of that - but fine because she'd known that's how he was, that's _who_ he was, and had completely accepted that aspect of his character.

He was lost in the memory of that laughter, that tinkling song of her friendship, when something blocked his light: casting a shadow from behind him over the body of the now almost fully-dressed deer. He'd been totally oblivious to his surroundings, but once his senses came back online, they all fired the same message simultaneously. _Walker_. The creature had gotten so close by then, though, that he barely had enough time to stand up and turn around before it was directly upon him. It its previous life, the man had been almost as big as Tyreese and, while he had a massive stomach wound, he was very recently dead and had a lot of strength to back up his newly acquired taste for human flesh. Since Daryl already had his knife in his hand, he was able to attack immediately, but his first mad stab was more instinct than aim and he missed his target by a few inches: tearing through the man's cheek instead of piercing his brain. He'd thrown all his weight behind the strike, though, and the combination of his momentum and the walker's undeterred, but now slightly off-balance, advance brought them both crashing to the ground. They landed side-by-side and, despite being jolted by the impact, Daryl was able to seize the opportunity to take the upperhand. He shoved the walker onto its back and threw himself on top of it. Straddling the creature, he raised his arm high into the air and brought it slamming back down into the man's skull: driving in the blade with enough force to nearly break his own hand. His pulse was pounding in his ears and he took a few gasping breaths before he extracted the knife and pulled himself upright to sit back on his heels. Surveying the scene, he realized what he'd done: he'd rolled the rotting corpse right into the wide-open deer carcass and now both creatures lay dead beneath him. The meat was completely unsalvageable. And he'd almost gotten himself killed.

He was furious.

He was absolutely fucking _furious_.

himself off his gruesome perch and, as soon as he got to his feet, he gave the walker a swift and powerful kick: connecting with the man's hipbone in an impact so solid it was almost briefly satisfying.

"Mother _fucker_ ," he growled, clenching the fist he still had wrapped around the knife impossibly and painfully tighter. "Motherfuckin' piece of _shit_ mother _fucker_."

He stared unblinkingly at the wretched creature, oozing blackened blood and festering intestinal fluids all over the once beautiful deer, that gorgeous little doe he'd sacrificed so he could live (and, yes, that sacrifice mattered to him,) and he wanted to scream. It was obscene. He'd always abhorred waste and that was a goddamn portrait of it. A putrid picture of pure and utter waste. Wasted life and wasted effort. It sickened him. The miles he'd walked, and still had left to walk, for no reason; the deer that had died for reason; and even the walker that had once been a man who had probably died for no reason, too.

Waste.

Waste.

Waste.

And it was entirely his fault. Well, not the walker's original death, someone else had to pay the bill on that one, but the rest of it was all on him. All on him for not paying attention. He couldn't believe that he'd been caught so completely unaware. That he'd been so deep inside his own head that he hadn't noticed any of the dozen signs that should have alerted him to the walker's arrival. The sounds the creature had made as it clumsily shuffled through the woods, the sounds the other woodland creatures had made (or stopped making) in response, the smell of death that had wafted through the air. All those tells, all those incredibly obvious tells that he had years of experience honing in on, and he hadn't picked up on a single one. Master fucking hunter, king of the fucking forest, Captain Survivor himself, hadn't noticed a damn thing.

He couldn't believe it.

Except he could. He could _totally_ believe it and that just infuriated him even more. Despite what most people assumed, he'd always had an active inner life and often got lost in his own thoughts. Those thoughts were almost always upsetting, though, so he'd get lost, but he wouldn't get _lulled_. His mind would be captured by self-criticism and anger and frustration: thoughts that made him put his guard _up_ , not let it down. Which, in addition to the obvious stereotyping, was why most people didn't perceive him as a deep thinker or a daydreamer. No matter how wrapped up he'd get, he'd still be on full alert and almost never be truly distracted.

Except when he thought about Beth.

Those thoughts _did_ distract him. They _did_ lull him. They _did_ make him let his guard down.

And they'd been doing it more and more.

He'd just gotten so _comfortable_. He'd gotten so comfortable in that house. He'd gotten so comfortable in his new world and his new life. There were parts about it that were incredibly hard, of course, and even more that were incredibly sad. But his life had _always_ be hard and pretty much always been sad and, somehow, in that house, he'd become pretty comfortable with that, too. Because in that house, even when he felt bad, he felt good. The pain he had over losing Beth was greater than any pain he'd ever known, but it didn't _hurt_ as badly in that house, in that life, as his other pains had before. A thousand lashes from Will Dixon were nothing compared to one lost minute with Beth Greene, but crying over her death in her doorway felt far _better_ than crying over himself in his closet ever did as a boy. The pain was worse in so many ways - the wound far deeper - but it wasn't as desperate, it wasn't as empty, it wasn't as dark.

It wasn't as lonely.

It wasn't as lonely, because it wasn't lonely at all. Because even though she was gone, she was still there. Still there in so many ways. And those tears he cried he was lucky to shed. Lucky to feel that pain. Lucky to have known her and loved her and to have had something so deeply _good_ touch his shitty little life. Something worth crying over. A true loss to mourn. He'd take a thousand of his father's lashes to have a one more minute with Beth - one more minute to tell her that he loved her, that he'd always love her, that she changed him, that she was special, she was so fucking _special_ , and that he was sorry, he was so fucking _sorry_ , so sorry that he'd failed her - but all the minutes he _did_ have with her were worth the lifetime of pain that now lay ahead.

It was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

He'd always thought that was _completely_ inane. A naive notion held by naive people who saw stupid shit as poetic and didn't see reality at all. The same people that thought a double-suicide was romantic for reasons he could never fucking understand. He now knew it was true, though. Absolutely, undeniably true. At least for him. For Beth. It was better. It was better to have loved her and lost her. It was so much better than it would have been never to have loved her at all.

So. Much. Better.

And in that hallway, in that house, in that life, he still had her. She lived in his home and in his head and in his heart and he was surrounded by _her_ all the time.

Her.

His world was her now. Him and her. He had no other thoughts and no other responsibilities. No one else's needs to consider or satisfy or work around. Nothing else to worry about or focus on. It was just them and their house and those woods. And all those things were comfortable. All those things were _safe_. And while the security he truly cherished, the security that truly _lulled_ him, came from an emotional place, there was an actual _physical_ security to his situation as well. Other than the unfortunate souls that were already on the property, he'd only seen a handful of walkers the entire time he'd been there and only one had gotten within sight of the house. He might not have had the fences of the prison or the walls of Alexandria, but he had hundreds of yards of open field to spot any threat long before it came.

And it never came.

So he'd gotten complacent. He'd gone spacey and soft and now he was staring at the pile of shit he had to show for it. The deer that he'd killed for nothing and the walker that had almost killed him for nothing, too. All for fucking nothing.

Waste.

Waste.

Waste.

"Bastard," he spat out, making his final pronouncement on the matter. "Filthy fuckin' _bastard_." It applied to them both. Him and the walker. Just two fucking bastards and a dead fucking deer. He wiped his knife off on the man's shirt angrily, taking no pleasure in the petty act of spite. He returned the clean blade to its sheath on his hip, picked his crossbow up of the ground where it had been resting since he began prepping the now spoiled doe, and started walking back home.

It was getting late.

His day had just come to a pointless end and all he could do now was put it behind him.

For the first few miles, he was still furious. Still fuming. Still berating himself for his reckless inattention. The closer he got to home, though, the calmer he became. On one level, it was simply due to the passage of time, the fires of his fury burning themselves out as the minutes ticked by, but it also felt like an effect of the nearing property, too. Part of its spell. His calm wasn't just the absence anger, it was an active sense of peace. A sense of peace that the house radiated and that enveloped him more and more the closer he got to the source.

He was really looking forward to getting back. Not just because he was tired and hungry and longing for the general comforts of home, but because Beth was going to turn five years old tonight. Barring something major in the life of one of her siblings, something that would would pad the average spacing of events, the next ten pages in the family photo album - his allotted chapter for that evening - would contain her fifth birthday. And he'd been looking forward to that since the beginning. He'd loved watching her grow in the very early years and there was nothing about the years to come that made them inherently more special or more important to witness, But he had those drawings. He had those drawings that he absolutely loved. He had those drawings that started at age five and he wanted to see the girl who had made them. He wanted to see the five-year-old that drew _Taco Spiderweb_ and the seven-year-old that drew _Rocket Squirrel's Trip to the Moon_.

He wanted to put a face to all his beloved catastrophes.

And he wanted to gain some insight into them, too. He didn't honestly think that would happen, but he held it out as an exciting, if distant, possibility. He thought that maybe he'd see something in those photographs, an event or a location or a toy, something that would reveal the inspiration behind all those incredibly inspired works of art. All those disastrously executed, but incredibly inspired, works of art. Maybe there was a photo that would explain _Coconut Dance at the County Fair_. Maybe there was a photo of a five-year-old Beth watching high school girls doing a hula routine: her big eyes wide and enchanted by the pretty little cheerleaders and their enthusiastic Georgian parody of a Hawaiian luau, dancing to the delight of friends and neighbors at the Coweta County Fair. Or maybe _she'd_ been the one dancing at the fair. Maybe there was a picture of her little kindergarten self, eating a coconut snow cone and rocking her tiny body to the joyful rhythm of a song that existed solely in her heart. (Those were the kind of thoughts, the kind of stories her objects inspired, that made him feel her presence so strongly. He just didn't think such wholesome narratives could be coming from within him. He didn't know how he could visualize these things so clearly when the imagery reflected nothing of his own world.) He didn't think it was likely that he'd find anything that revelatory, and with a lot of the titles it seemed patently impossible, but he thought there was a chance. He thought there was a chance that maybe one photo would illuminate one drawing. That he might get just _one_ little piece of the puzzle.

And he let himself be excited by that. Because that was one of the most wonderful things about his life now: he had things to be excited about. Things to look forward to. When Beth died, he'd thought he'd never have anything to look forward to again. Thought he'd never have any reason to actually _want_ to get up the next day. But he had reasons now. They were modest, compared to everything he wished he had, they were incredibly modest and small. But they were real and they were deeply meaningful to him. He had his ten pages every night. Ten new pages of Beth every night. And he had whatever was in the rest of the house, too. All those things he'd yet to uncover. The old report cards that might be in Herschel's desk drawer or the handmade bookmark that might be lurking in one of the volumes in the study.

And he still had her room.

He still had all those things in her room, that entire world contained in her room, that he hadn't even begun to explore. He might be stuck in the hallway for now, but one day he'd get to go in there. One day he'd find the courage and he'd go in there and he'd have all those things as well.

One day.

As he thought that, thought about the day when he'd actually go into her room, actually heard the words _one day_ in his head, it really struck him - really and truly struck him to his very core - that he could have died an hour ago. His corpse could be decorating the forest floor a few miles back there or already turned and risen, roaming the woods in search of prey. He could be a walker eager for the warmth of human blood, instead of a man eager for the warmth of home.

He could have fucking died.

He could have died having never gone into Beth's room. He could have bled to death in the woods just a few miles from her home, having spent night after night under her roof, and having never entered her room. And how would _that_ have felt? How the _fuck_ would _that_ have felt? In those last few minutes? Feeling the life draining out of him, knowing that it was the end and that he'd never walked through that door?

He didn't believe in Heaven or an afterlife. Over the past couple of months, he'd been feeling a growing connection to something intangible and not of this world. Something most people would call spiritual. Something he'd sometimes even call spiritual, too. And that had given him hope that maybe he might be wrong. Given him hope that maybe there was a Heaven or some other place, some other realm where he'd get to be with Beth again. A place where he could have more than that one minute he'd trade everything for now. Those hopes were fragile, though. Those hopes weren't strong enough to sustain him in his final moments. If he'd been bitten, if he'd been laying there dying next to that rotting corpse and that wasted deer, smelling death all around him, sensing it emanating from himself, knowing that he'd soon turn and bring that same fate upon someone else, he wouldn't have had lovely visions of the sweet hereafter dancing around in his head. He wouldn't have been joyfully anticipating Beth's welcoming embrace. He'd have been feeling like it was the end. The desperate and meaningless end. And he knew, without a doubt, that not going into Beth's room would have seemed like the stupidest thing in the world to him in that moment. Would have seemed like the most painfully fitting final chapter to his rich biography of moronic and deeply regrettable acts. It wouldn't have been his _biggest_ regret, of course, that would always be opening that fucking funeral home door, but it would have been the freshest. And it would have been a horrible way to go. Feeling like an idiot and almost fully certain that the approaching darkness was about to obliterate him entirely.

A lifetime of stupidity followed by an eternity of nothingness.

Waste.

Waste.

Waste.

He'd been so focused on what he'd be risking by going into that room - all those stories, that connection, that magic - that he hadn't even considered what he was risking by _not_ going in there. What he was risking by just assuming that he had forever. That he could afford to wait until it felt right. Wait until he had the courage. What he was risking based on that incredibly ludicrous assumption. That absolutely _insane_ assumption. He could die any day. He could die _any_ fucking day. Any time he stepped outside of that house, he could die. Fuck, he could die staying inside of it, too. Someone else could come along and decide that the Greene family home seemed like a pretty good place to ride out an apocalypse and kill him so they could take it for themselves. Wouldn't be the first time someone tried that. He didn't think that it was likely, just like he knew that his encounter with the walker earlier hadn't really been _that_ close of a call, all things considered, he'd been in far greater danger before, but that wasn't really the point. The point was that anything could happen at any time and he'd been living in a dream world acting like that wasn't the case. Acting like he had forever when he knew damn well that he didn't.

Hadn't he learned that lesson before?

Hadn't he learned that there's no forever?

Hadn't he learned that life ends in a heartbeat?

He'd been walking fast, blazing his way as quickly as he could back home, but that stopped him dead in his tracks. He was hit with the most hideous sense of deja vu: a terrible wave of realization, recognition, and remembrance that made his skin crawl. Because that wasn't the only lesson he should have learned before. That wasn't the only mistake he'd been repeating. Not at all. He'd been repeating the biggest mistake he'd ever made in his life. The very mistake that brought him to that house in the first place. The mistake that turned that room into a shrine to begin with

He'd been confining himself to the hallway because he wasn't willing to risk losing what he had and that was the _exact_ same fucking cowardice that had gotten Beth killed.

The entire chain of events leading to Beth's death began with him opening that funeral home door. Opening it recklessly and thoughtlessly, without any caution or hesitation, because he'd wanted so desperately to escape her question. He'd been terrified by the direction the conversation had been headed in. Terrified that his feelings were about to be exposed. He'd been sure that, if he'd stayed in that kitchen one more minute, let one more word come out of his mouth, she'd have discovered just how much he cared for her. She'd have known that he loved her. That he was _in_ love with her. She'd have known.

She'd have known.

And he hadn't wanted her to know. He hadn't wanted her to know because he hadn't wanted to jeopardize what he had, what _they_ had. He'd wanted more than just her friendship, but he hadn't been willing to risk losing that friendship to get it. So he'd run for the door like a pussy and ended up losing _everything_ instead.

Beth had lost her life because he hadn't been willing to risk losing a friend.

It was as simple and as horrible as that.

Except it was worse. It was even _worse_ than that. Because the risk that he'd been so terrified to take hadn't really been a risk at all. He didn't think that Beth had loved him the way that he loved her. Didn't think that his feelings had been reciprocated. But he _did_ know that Beth never would have stopped being his friend because of them. Never would have held those feelings against him. In the moment, all he'd felt was sheer panic and he'd responded from a completely irrational place. He'd had months to think about it since, though, and he'd done just that: he'd thought about that night for months. He'd thought about that night every night since it happened. He'd re-written the script hundreds and hundreds of times. Imagined every possible scenario and outcome. And he hadn't been able to come up with a single truly plausible narrative where she rejected his friendship. He'd had lurid fantasies that ended with them on the kitchen table or the floor or even the goddamn casket, each of which seemed more delusional than the last and all of which seemed more believable than her cutting off her affections entirely. She just hadn't been that kind of a person. She hadn't been that kind of friend. She'd been better than that. Kinder than that. More understanding and caring and accepting than that.

That's why he fucking loved her in the first place.

He was back to racing towards the house now, no longer frozen in horror but propelled by overwhelming agitation. He was so upset by these parallels. So deeply upset to see history repeating itself in all its viciously idiotic glory. And it was _truly_ idiotic, he realized. Because his struggle over entering Beth's room had the same ironic twist as his struggle over talking to her in that kitchen. He hadn't seen it before, but it was suddenly blindingly clear: his current battle was also being waged over a risk that wasn't actually a risk at all. Everything he was worried about losing - all those stories and that sense of connection - could only be coming from one of two places: they were either being fabricated in his own mind or they were being given to him by something outside of himself. Something that might be God or the universe or pure psychic energy or, more than likely, if it was anything like that at all, something that was probably _Beth_. If it was him, if everything he was afraid of losing was actually something he was creating for himself, if he was just more imaginative or more sensitive or simply more insane than he thought, then he had nothing to worry about. His skills wouldn't be diminished by his location. One foot inside her doorway wouldn't change the inner workings of his brain. And if it _wasn't_ him, if it _was_ something else, if it _was_ Beth - and, despite a lifetime spent thinking such things were utter nonsense, he really did think that that was more believable - then why would it stop? Why would _she_ stop? Why would she stop whispering her enchanting tales to him? Why would she stop filling him with her light? Why would she stop soothing him? Why would she stop comforting him when she knows he needs it and she's the only one that can? Why would she do that? Why?

She wouldn't.

She fucking _wouldn't_.

She wouldn't hurt him like that, she wouldn't hurt _anyone_ like that, not in a million fucking years. If he wasn't manufacturing his own magic, and Beth was really behind it all, then he had nothing to fear about going in there, either. She wouldn't stop. In fact, she'd _want_ him to go in there. She'd fucking _want_ him to go in there. If she was telling him those stories, if she was reaching out to him in all those intangible but deeply felt ways, then she wanted him to hear her. She wanted him to feel her. She was giving herself to him and she wasn't going to stop.

She was giving herself to him and he was keeping his distance.

He took a deep, gasping breath, but didn't slow his furious pace back to the farm. If this was Beth engaging him, then he was failing to fully engage her back. Yet another fucking parallel to the previous incarnation of their relationship: she was being open and sharing and kind and he was keeping his fucking distance. He was still keeping this fucking bullshit _distance_ between them.

 _God forbid you ever let anybody get too close._

He was closer to her than he'd ever been to anyone, closer to her in death than he even had been in life, but he was _still_ holding back. He was still holding back and he was an absolute idiot. An absolute fucking idiot _asshole_ making the same goddamn mistakes all over again.

An absolute fucking idiot asshole who'd just broken through the treeline around the Greene property and now had home in his sights.

Home.

He was home. He was home and her room was in there waiting for him, she was in there waiting for him, and he was going to go inside the minute he walked through that door.

* * *

 _I know, I know. Another chapter and he still hasn't gone into Beth's room?! I really didn't mean for that to happen, it just kind of got away from me. I swear it's the last one though. No more fooling around, he really is going in there this time. :)_

 _Hope you stick around for it! Lord knows you've earned it at this point. You've slogged through 40,000 + words waiting for the guy to literally put one foot in front of the other._

 _You probably won't be surprised to hear that I'm NOT one of those people that thinks TWD is too slow. :)_


	5. Chapter 5

_Okay, so chapter five and the verdict is in: this story is reader repellent! Holy crow! I'm apparently building a rickety-ass ship and people are jumping overboard in droves. At least a third of the audience bails after each chapter and, at this rate, but I'll be the only person who makes it to the end. (Actually, if I'm brutally honest with the math, I might not even read it myself!)_

 _So, statistically speaking, this will be the last chapter a lot of you read and, to those of you in that group, I want to say I'm sorry this story hasn't lived up to your expectations. I know how disappointing it can be when you think you've found something you enjoy and then it goes off the rails. I'm sorry this has been that kind of disappointment for you and I really hope the next story you find totally captures your heart._

 _To the rest of you who'll buck the trend and hang in there, thank you! I've thanked you guys before every chapter, and I've meant it every time, but I especially mean it now. Thank you for reading this, thank you for putting up with me being slow and un-sexy and just generally inexperienced at the whole art of storytelling, thank you for supporting me as I learn, and thank you for leaving such kind reviews._

 _Okay, on with the show…._

* * *

Daryl vaulted up the front steps of the porch and rushed into the house, practically slamming the door shut behind him as he entered. The resulting sound was far too loud for the Greene home, far too close to the sound of rage, to the sound of danger, to the sound of all those doors slamming in his trailer as a boy, and the dissonance of it jolted him. His furious movements came to a sudden halt and he stood stock still at the bottom of the stairs. He took a few deep breaths, placed his hand over his breast pocket, and gazed up to the top of the stairwell: giving himself just a few seconds to soak up the view. To take in the moment. He'd walked up those stairs a hundred times over the past few weeks, but all those trips now seemed like practice runs.

This was the first time he was going up there for real.

And he was ready. _More_ than fucking ready. He took one last breath and dropped his hand from his chest in preparation to take that next step, but when his palm detached from his pocket it took an unidentifiable piece of walker gore off with it and he realized just how filthy he was. His clothes were soaked in blood and other assorted bodily fluids, both from the corpse and from the deer, and his hands were encrusted in all manner of horror, fingernails practically black.

He couldn't go into her room like that.

He couldn't bring such ugliness into such a beautiful place. He couldn't dirty her pretty things with his soiled hands and there was no way he was going in there and keeping his hands to himself, either. So he took off upstairs, but rather than turn left and head towards her room, he turned right and went towards his instead. He grabbed his cleanest shirt and pair of pants, neither of which were clean at all, but were covered in a grime that was so deeply embedded, it would at least be non-transferrable. He then walked down the hall to one of the shared bathrooms where he was grateful, yet again, that the property ran off of well-water and had working plumbing. He was only planning on washing his hands and changing his clothes, but when he caught a glimpse himself in the mirror, when he saw his hair slick with a grim pomade of human grease and gore, his greying beard tinted a deathly shade of crimson, he knew that wasn't going to be enough. He needed to wash that day off of him entirely. He needed to get as clean as he possibly could.

He needed to shower.

He'd been in that house for three weeks but he'd only showered there once. Hygiene had never been that important to him to begin with and the freezing temperatures of what came out of the Greene's faucets didn't exactly add any enticement to the experience. He was thankful for the easy access to clean water, but he didn't relish the idea of immersing himself in it and had consistently avoided doing so. There was no doubt it had to be done this time, though, so he went ahead and started stripping quickly: grimacing at the sticky sensation of the fabric peeling away from his skin and at the wet, heavy thud made by the discarded materials as they landed on the floor. He jumped in the stall, pulled the curtain closed behind him, and turn on the faucet full blast. He had a little soap, but was going to need as much pressure as he could to help power away all the foulness he was marinated in. The water was biting, but it was a good sting. It was a purifying kind of pain and he didn't shy away from the spray. He started washing his hair, scrubbing as hard as he possibly could, and then moved on to tackle the rest of his body with equal vigor.

Given the circumstances, that shower probably would have always felt important. As a step leading up to him entering Beth's room for the first time, it probably would have always felt different somehow. Since it wasn't part of his routine at all, though, since it was something he'd only done once before and very reluctantly at that, it really stood out as special. As something truly out of the ordinary. And he was suddenly so glad for that. So glad that he was generally a dirty person, so glad that he didn't shower often, so glad that it could be something he was doing just for her: a way for him to show that he was ready to step out of his comfort zone, figuratively and literally (because the shit really _was_ freezing), to give her the respect she deserved.

He scoured his limbs and his particularly gory torso and, while the motions were all familiar, they somehow felt brand new. He'd never cleaned himself quite like this before. He'd never showered to get _ready_ for something. Never washed up for company or got spruced up for a special occasion. He'd only ever bathed for purely sanitary purposes and, though basic physical cleanliness was definitely his aim this time, too, it felt like hygiene was just part of a much larger goal. He was preparing himself to enter Beth's room, of course, which certainly _was_ a larger goal, but it felt like something even grander than that. Felt like he was getting ready for something even bigger than simply stepping into that space.

He got a lump in his throat when he realized what it was.

It felt like he was getting ready for a date.

He'd never gone on a date, had never _wanted_ to go on a date, but he'd seen them on TV and in the movies. He'd seen all those cheesy montages of soon-to-be lovers preparing for the night that's about to change their lives. He'd seen those supposedly sexy cologne commercials and read the ridiculous titles of the advice articles that filled the men's magazines they used to keep by the convenience store checkout. He'd even heard a few of Merle's friends, the ones who'd been more pathetic than sleazy, talk about their own attempts at romance. Heard them share their sad efforts to please the old lady or curry favor with some poor girl they happened to be sweet on. So, while he'd never done anything like it himself, he had a pretty good idea of the basics. And, in both the fantasy world of Hollywood and the grim reality of his trailerpark, those basics were the same: you get yourself spic and span, cleaning behind your ears and under your nails and every nook and cranny in between, and you put on your nicest outfit. You try to make yourself look as decent as you possibly can. You make an effort so your girl can _see_ you made an effort. So she knows that you cared enough to try. So she knows that you thought she was worth it.

You do exactly what he was doing.

And for a few moments, that made him incredibly sad. It broke his already broken heart to think that his date with Beth was just a date with her spirit. That he didn't have a girl that he could bring flowers or chocolates to or do any of the other things for that he imagined a man normally would. He tried to put those thoughts aside, though. Tried to hold on to his excitement about finally going into her room and not let himself be swept away by his grief. And it was hard, but not nearly as hard as he would have imagined. Because, the truth was, a date with Beth's spirit was still the best fucking date he could possibly go on. He'd rather be alone with her spirit in that room than be together with anyone else anywhere else in the world.

The water had finally begun to run clear, and he was beyond freezing, so he turned off the tap and jumped out of the shower: toweling himself dry as fast as he could. He threw on his fresh clothes and grabbed his pictures from the pocket of his discarded shirt so he could move them to their new, cleaner home. He took a moment to look at Beth's face as held the Polaroid in his hand and smiled softly at the woman who, he felt in his bones, was waiting for him just a few doors down the hall.

"Betcha can't believe I got all squeaky clean for you, girl," he said with a smirk. "Betcha didn't think I had it in me. Thought the dirty old redneck didn't have any manners, but I got some tricks up my sleeve you ain't seen. Believe it or not, Mr. Dixon can be a gentleman."

"I just hope you were a _lady_ ," he laughed lightly, unable to stop himself from teasing her. "Just hope you were a lady and kept your eyes to yourself back there. I know you ain't rude, and I know I ain't much to look at, but you _are_ curious as fuck. You're a curious little kitten, girl, and I know you can't help yourself sometimes. So, just in case that happened, just in case you _were_ peekin' at me a few minutes ago, let me tell you somethin', sweetheart, that water was fuckin' _cold_. Don't know if you could tell that from where you are and I don't know how much you know about men...but that ain't me at my best, girl. Need you to know that."

He was really surprised that he'd made such a sexual joke to her (even if it was just to her spirit.) And he was equally surprised that he wasn't the least bit bothered by the idea of her watching him in the shower. He actually liked both those things. Liked the intimacy of them. It might have been a completely fictitious intimacy, but it felt real to him.

It felt real and it felt good.

"If you were here in person you wouldn't have seen me like that," he added, just because he was enjoying himself. "Wouldn't have been that bad with you around. Ain't no shower cold enough to defeat you, girl."

That was, without a doubt, the boldest thing he'd ever said to her. He'd imagined far more explicit things, of course, (far, _far_ more explicit things), but the words had never actually left his mouth. Had never even come close. And, while he didn't feel the embarrassment he would have had she truly been in the room, he blushed deeply all the same. It was a warm feeling, though. A heat that had very little to do with shame. He regarded her face one last time, giving her a parting grin, and then slipped both pictures in his pocket, patting them a couple times in a habit he found reassuring.

"Alright, enough of that," he said, running his hands through his damp hair. "Not gonna let you distract me. Got a pretty girl waitin' for me down the hall. And she's way outta my league, so I gotta hurry up before she changes her mind."

He scooped up his dirty clothes and left the bathroom, stopping by his room to throw the soiled garments on the small pile of laundry he kept in the corner. He was halfway down the hall to Beth's door when he realized that he was still barefoot. He'd left his boots in the bathroom. Such a small thing, but again something new. He'd never walked around the house barefoot before. Actually couldn't remember the last time he'd walked around anywhere barefoot. And, though it was technically a little dangerous to be that vulnerable (which was why he hadn't done it in years), it felt perfect for the moment. He flashed on her origami cranes and thought he remembered that some people in Asia used to take their shoes off when they'd entered a home or gone into a temple or something. As a sign a respect. He wasn't exactly sure, but he liked it. His already quiet tread was completely silent and the walk to her room felt soft. Gentle.

Like another intimate moment.

When he got to her door, he hesitated for a fraction of a second, just a half of a heartbeat, before he crossed the threshold. Once he took that final step, once he broke that barrier and the world didn't come tumbling down, his hand reached out for the first thing it could touch. Moved without his will or control, as if drawn by a magnet. It was her desk and the rich, dark wood felt so solid, so substantial, beneath his fingertips. He caressed it lightly and imagined her hand doing the same. She'd once run her beautiful, slender fingers over that same grain. She'd run those beautiful, slender fingers over that same grain even before they were beautiful and slender. She'd run those beautiful, slender fingers over that same grain back when they were the short, clumsy fingers that couldn't draw a recognizable sun. Back when they were the short, clumsy fingers forever immortalized as the world's most woebegotten Thanksgiving turkey.

All those different Beths, and all her lovely little hands, had touched that wood, too.

His own hand was shaking slightly from the emotion of the moment, but it didn't feel like the movement was coming from within him. It felt like the desk was vibrating and his body was simply picking up on _its_ tremor. Reflecting _its_ energy. He began to make a slow circuit around the edge of her room, running his hand over every object and piece of furniture he passed by. He didn't bend over to touch anything and he didn't reach up, either. He just kept his hand at a natural level and felt whatever he happened to encounter. It wasn't a full investigation yet, it wasn't an inventory, it was just a basic act of engagement.

Just a series of slow, easy steps and a simple, but deeply powerful, sensory experience.

He ran his hand over the slick, glossy cover of her American history textbook, the worn leather binding of her bible, and the cool plastic of her closed laptop. He slid his fingertips along the window sill, noticing the slightly uneven finish of the paint job, which had been carefully done, but had obviously been treated to numerous coats over the years. He reached her cream-colored chair, the home to her stuffed animals, and touched the soft upholstery, realizing that the delicate pattern on the fabric that he'd thought was an abstract design was actually small birds in various stages of flight. It was beautiful, beautiful in a way he would have dismissed for most of his life as overly precious, but in a way he truly appreciated now. Appreciated because of her. He found himself tracing the birds with his index finger, expecting to feel them somehow. To be able to distinguish the print from the rest of the material. There was no difference, of course, and he eventually snapped himself of his minor trance and kept moving on.

He passed by her bathroom door, unconsciously deciding to go in there later, and moved onto her dresser. The wood was just as rich and warm as her desk and he stroked it lovingly, enjoying the age and quality it radiated. He ran a light finger over her ceramic figurines: assorted woodland animals and a fairy with a chipped wing. Taking a few more steps he got to the silver tray where she'd stored at least some of her jewellery: various necklaces, bracelets and rings. He hadn't been able to make out the details on any of the pieces from his perch at the door and took a moment to inspect them now. Though he'd never seen her wear any of them, he could picture her in them all. They were all made of earthy materials and almost every piece had some organic element to the design. Some representation of nature. Flowers and leaves and feathers depicted in leather and silver and stone. They were just like her: beauty without pretension.

Effortlessly lovely.

One piece stood out as different, though. He hadn't touched any of the jewellery, had been keeping his hand on the dresser the whole time, but before he knew what he was doing, he was digging into the pile to grab the anomalous object near the bottom. It was a pair of dog tags. A pair of very realistic looking dog tags with her information on them.

GREENE  
BETHANY A.  
525-786-8934AF  
B POS  
SOUTHERN BAPTIST

He recognized what should have been the social security number as a local area phone number and presumed it had been hers. Despite their official appearance, they were obviously fake (there was a lot he didn't know about Beth, but he was confident she hadn't been a secret teenage commando) and he wondered how and why she'd gotten them. He could only assume that they'd been a trend. Some kind of fashion thing. He knew that camo had been considered stylish at one point. He'd seen pretty boys on magazine covers wearing army gear: guys who'd have been scared of a slap fight decked out for Armageddon. Maybe dog tags had been part of that, too. Beth didn't strike him as a particularly trendy person, but he hadn't known her in a world where trends even existed, and he figured most teenagers probably cared about that stuff, or were at least influenced by it, to one extent or another.

It didn't really matter, though. Holding them in his hands, feeling the cool weight of the metal, reading the life detailed in the inscription, they didn't seem like a piece of fashion. Didn't seem like some shiny trinket you'd buy at the mall. They seemed real. They _were_ real. They _were_ real because Beth _had_ been a soldier. She'd fought in a war. She'd seen battle. And she'd served with honor. She'd fought with courage and bravery and her own brand of quiet heroism. And those words punched into that metal, those cold factual words that said so little, said so much. That was the name of the woman he loved, that was the type of blood that had flowed through her veins, and that was the faith that had burned in her heart.

He didn't even think about whether or not to wear them. Didn't think about whether it was acceptable for him to just take ownership of one of her possessions like that. To take something that had once decorated her body and use it to decorate his. To mark himself with her, to _stamp_ himself with her, in such a personal way. He just slipped them over his head like he'd done it every day of his life. Like they were a permanent fixture of his wardrobe. And, while in truth they were relatively light, they felt heavy around his neck. Provided a welcome pressure against his sternum. It was just a few grams of metal, but he felt the full weight of her name, her blood, and her beliefs. The weight of her strength in combat and her dependability as a brother-in-arms.

He glanced up to look at his reflection and found himself staring at a picture of Beth instead. Tucked into the edge of the mirror's frame was one of those four-shot strips people used to take in photo booths depicting Beth in various poses. She was with a dark-haired girl wearing cat-eye glasses and it was clear from the joyful looks on both their faces that they'd been close. They were probably about fifteen and, while the Beth in the pictures looked younger than the girl who he loved, younger than the girl who lived in his mind, she was still very much _Beth_. A little rounder in the cheeks, but definitely still more of a young woman than a young child.

They were a delightful little series of photos because they were just innocent shots of two friends having fun. Being silly and playing around. Over the past few years, Daryl had seen hundreds of pictures of teenage girls in bedrooms all across the South and they were almost always sexualizing themselves. Always preening for the camera. Trying to look cute. Trying to look hot. Trying to entice and appeal. Beth and her friend weren't like that at all, though. They weren't doing those stupid pouty lip faces. Weren't sticking out their chests or slumping their shoulders forward to show cleavage. And they both totally could have been, too. They could have easily been those girls. He wasn't particularly attracted to a fifteen-year-old Beth (though he couldn't completely rule it out in the way he would have liked) and he _definitely_ wasn't attracted to her friend, but they had both been beautiful girls who could have pulled off the whole fake-model thing without problem. The kind of beautiful girls who, based on appearances alone, he would have expected to do that. Expected to behave that way. Of course, Beth hadn't been like that, though. And, unsurprisingly, her friend hadn't been, either. They'd just been two teenagers having fun and the sweet simplicity of that made him smile.

He broke his gaze from the photo a looked back at himself in the mirror, appraising his new dog tags. He was surprised by how good he thought they looked. He'd never given any care to his appearance, never looked at his reflection and felt any emotion about what he was wearing, so the pleasure was a foreign feeling. The whole experience was foreign. Here was this clean man, with freshly-scrubbed skin and grease-free hair, wearing a sparkling piece of jewellery who somehow looked like _him_. Really looked like _him_. Looked like how he was _meant_ to look. Maybe not the cleanliness, but the adornments. He was meant to have a shiny piece of metal with Beth's name stamped on it hanging from around his neck. He was supposed to have that gleaming object at the center of his chest.

"Fuck, girl," he said with a grin. "What are you doin' to me? Got me showerin' and wearin' a necklace. Gonna be paintin' my fuckin' nails next."

He paused and laughed softly, "I'd do it, too, you know. Betcha think I wouldn't, but I would. If I could get one of those laughs out of you, one of the really good ones, the ones that make me worry for your fuckin' sanity, then I'd do it. Fingers and toes. Whatever color you want. Dealer's choice."

He paused for a moment, running his hand through his hair, and then looked back at her face in the photostrip. "Nah, that ain't true. Can't lie to you, girl," he amended. "Wouldn't need you to laugh like that. I'd do it for a goddamn giggle. I do it for a _pity_ giggle for Christ's sake. You got no idea the kinda dumb ass shit I'd do for you. No idea what kinda fool I'd be. Woulda posed with them pouty duck lips if I'da been in that photo booth with you. Woulda acted like an idiot Charlie's Angel. Woulda done whatever stupid thing I could think of to make you happy."

He spoke to Beth almost every day, but not like this. He made quick comments about his plans for the afternoon or shared his reaction to the latest photo of her as a child. He talked to her, but he tried to keep it brief. He tried to keep it brief because part of him was troubled by the behavior. Troubled by the idea of talking to himself all alone in an empty house. Talking to a ghost that didn't _feel_ like a ghost. A ghost that felt so real. So real that he worried that he'd lose himself in those imagined conversations: that he'd slip into a madness that was far too comfortable, too enjoyable, too soothing to fight.

But, just like it had felt good to tease her after his shower, it felt good to talk to her in her bedroom now. Standing there at her dresser, he wasn't unnerved by his speech. It didn't feel dangerous and it didn't feel crazy. He didn't fear falling down a rabbit hole. Didn't fear the sound of his voice echoing in a void.

It just felt natural.

Right.

He continued his journey, walking away from the dresser and ignoring her closet that was on the other side. Just like the bathroom, he decided to leave it for now. He turned the corner and stepped over to her bookcase, instead. The bookcase that housed that magical mason jar full of rocks, which looked just as innocuous up close as it had from the door, just as plain and non-descript. He ran his hand over the glass, but didn't pick it up. He let his touch linger for just a moment then continued on his path: feeling his way across all the other small objects on the shelf. The sand dollar and piece of blue coral. The wooden box which he could now see had an elephant carved in the center of the lid and a vaguely bamboo-like design etched around the sides.

Running his fingers over the engraving, he couldn't resist opening it. It felt special and he wondered what special thing she could have stored in it. What treasure it kept safe. He couldn't help but laugh when he saw that the personal riches it contained were buttons. Regular old dress buttons like you would sew on a shirt. They were in varying colors and in a few different shapes, but just like the rocks, none of them seemed particularly remarkable. They were all cheap plastic and relatively plain. He swirled his finger through the collection, just feeling the baubles move against his skin. He wasn't sure why he did it. It was just another part of the tactile frame of mind he was in. When his nail scraped across the bottom of the box, it caught on the edge of a piece of paper that had been buried underneath the pile. He pulled it out and discovered that it was a fortune from a fortune cookie.

 _ **You will bring great joy and happiness to the lives of others.**_

"Ain't that the fuckin' truth," he chuckled, shaking his head slightly.

He knew fortune cookies almost always said encouraging things, of course. Told fortunes the reader would _want_ to hear. Painted a picture of them they'd _want_ to believe. Still, that particular one was so on point he couldn't help but be moved by its accuracy. Couldn't help but feel a small amount of true prescience in it. Sense a tiny bit of fate in the fact that she'd been the one to so rightly receive that message. That little flicker of wonder turned into a roaring flame of shock, though. when he turned the paper over and saw what was printed on the back.

 _ **Lucky Numbers: 7, 24, 69**_

7/24/69

His birthday.

That was his fucking _birthday_. She'd bring joy and happiness to the lives of others and her lucky numbers were his birthday. They hadn't been that lucky for _her_ , he couldn't help but think sadly - she might have been better off had he never been born - but she sure as hell had been lucky for _him_. Knowing her had been the best piece of good luck, the greatest stroke of good fortune, that he'd ever had in his life. And it was a life that she'd _definitely_ brought joy and happiness to.

A life that she was _still_ bringing joy and happiness to.

He stared at those numbers for at least a full minute, just trying to wrap his mind around the impossible coincidence of it. Because it was an _impossible_ coincidence. It couldn't truly _be_ a coincidence, could it? He didn't have the math skills to calculate the odds on that. To figure out the likelihood of that very specific series of numbers showing up in any random set of three. But he'd seen enough people lose enough at gambling, Merle being chief among them, to know that Lady Probability was a bitch. Whatever the odds were, they were low. Low that those numbers had been printed on that paper in the first place. Low that that cookie had been sent to a Chinese restaurant in Senoia, Georgia. Low that it had ended up on her plate all those years ago. The odds on all that happening had to be so low. The odds of _those_ numbers and _that_ message coming together and being put in _her_ hands had to be so fucking _low_. It couldn't be a coincidence. It _had_ to matter. It had to matter that she'd gotten that. It had to matter that she'd _kept_ it. It had to matter.

 _It does matter._

He carefully placed the fortune in his pocket, planning on putting it next to the fruit cocktail on his dresser, the latest addition to his growing shrine, and returned the box to the shelf. He took a small step back and began to scan the titles of her books. He'd only been able to make a few of them out from his perch in the doorway and had been incredibly curious about what she'd read. He recognized a lot of the volumes as classics and things she'd probably been assigned for school: _The Great Gatsby, Romeo and Juliet,The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter_ , and so on. Others were clearly childhood favorites, a couple of the _Harry Potter_ books, _Where the Sidewalk Ends_ , _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ , and a dozen other titles he'd seen in countless kid's rooms.

She hadn't only been interested in fiction, though. There was more than a full shelf devoted to non-fiction, too. A few books on European history and a couple on archaeology, but over forty on the natural world. Books about plants and rocks, books about the seas and the stars, but mostly books about animals. Lots and lots of books about animals. He wasn't remotely surprised by that, of course. He'd known she was an animal lover. She'd grown up on a farm and her dad had been a veterinarian: he'd have known that about her even if he hadn't known her at all. So the encyclopedia of dog breeds and the field guide to the birds of Georgia didn't really capture his attention. What _did_ capture his attention were the books on _other_ animals. Legendary animals. Mythical and disputed animals. There was a whole series of presumably serious titles about debatable creatures: _An Anthropological Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates, Watcher in the Woods: the Case for the Existence of Sasquatch, Quest for the Yeti: Confronting the Himalayas' Deepest Mystery, Sonar Detection and the Search for the Loch Ness Monster, The Science Behind the Wampus Cat_ , and other similar works. Including one title that made his heart skip a beat:

 _Encountering Chupacabra: Eyewitness Accounts of the Unexplained_

He couldn't believe it. He couldn't fucking _believe_ that she had that book. That she'd actually bought a book about the chupacabra and read it. Read it and, judging by her interest in other mysterious phenomena, might have actually believed it, too. Had at least been _willing_ to believe it. Willing to consider the possibility. And when he thought about it like that, it actually made perfect sense. _Of course_ , she'd have seen the possibility in nature. She saw the possibility in _everything_. She saw the _potential_ in everything. Of course she'd have seen the potential in nature, too.

He pulled the book from the shelf gingerly, careful to note the surrounding volumes so he could put it back exactly where she'd left it. So he could preserve the scene. The book was well worn, with dozens of dog-eared pages and numerous cracks to its spine. It appeared to be a relatively recent publication, though, and when he looked at the date on the back cover, he saw that it had been written just a year before the turn. All that wear and tear was hers. The book had the beaten look of something long used, something purchased at a garage sale or salvaged from a library cast-off bin, but she'd bought that thing new and had battered it herself. She hadn't just read that book, she'd _studied_ it. She'd poured through it. She'd marked pages that were of interest to her and had returned to them again and again.

"I swear to _God_ I saw one of these, Beth," he said, flipping slowly through the pages. "Swear to fuckin' _God_. Was probably 'bout ten years ago or somethin'. I was out huntin' squirrel…"

He paused and grinned, "Can fuckin' hear you laughin' from here, girl. Can fuckin' _hear_ you. Laughin' at me eatin' squirrel back when there were still grocery stores and shit. But I did. Way back in the good old world."

"Did that shit before it was cool," he said with small, sarcastic laugh. "Daryl Dixon, fuckin' hipster."

He'd reached the center of the book, which contained various illustrations, and he examined them as he continued, "Anyway, I'd been out huntin' for hours and hadn't found a damn thing. Which was crazy 'cause it was Spring and there shoulda been critters all over the fuckin' place. Spent years in those woods and I'd never seen 'em that empty. So I just kept wanderin' and wanderin' and eventually I come across these dog tracks. Like from a big, heavy dog. But there ain't no human tracks with 'em. Weren't nobody walkin' their dog, you know? Not that anyone woulda done that there anyway. Weren't those kinda woods."

One of the pictures in the book looked exactly like what he'd seen that day and it excited him. His voice got a little more animated as he went on with the story, "So I figure I'll start trackin' the dog. Check it out, you know? Plus, it's probably huntin', too, right? We got the same goal, might as well do it together. So I start followin' the tracks and after awhile they meet up with a deer trail. And the fuckin' dog notices and take a hard right and starts followin' the deer. Which I thought was pretty ballsy, right? It was a big ass dog and deers ain't predators or nothin', but still it ain't somethin' you see everyday. Anyway, another hour goes by or somethin' and I think I'm finally catchin' up with him when I start hearing these real low growlin' sounds."

He paused, the noise so clear in his head,"Honestly, sounded like a fuckin' walker feedin' now that I think about it. Was definitely somethin' big eatin' somethin' it _really_ fuckin' wanted. And you ain't the only curious kitten, girl. Like to think I'm more of a curious _cat_. Straight-up tomcat with claws and shit. But, kitten or cat, I was fuckin' curious, so I had to go see what was goin' on. See if the dog had really taken down the goddamn deer. Benji eatin' Bambi and all that."

He was still staring at the illustration that so accurately captured the creature in the scene he was about to describe and he continued speaking, completely unselfconscious to be telling an entire tale to an empty room, "So I round the corner and there's the dog with its jaws clamped down on the dead deer's neck 'Cept it ain't no dog. Ain't no dog at all. It's a goddamn chupacabra. Looked exactly like this fucker here. Page 174. _Artist Rendering of Chupacabra Sighting at Tahoma Mills_. Don't know where the fuck Tahoma Mills is, but that's the thing I saw. _Exactly_. Swear to fuckin' God."

And it _was_ the honest-to-God truth. The only part of the story he'd left out was that he'd been on mushrooms at the time. He always left out that part of the story, though. He left it out because he was embarrassed by the portrait it painted of him (a portrait that was pretty accurate for most of his life and all the more painful for it) and because, in the eyes of most people, it would completely invalidate an experience that he knew had been real. He always left out that part of the story, but he suddenly didn't like the omission. Felt like he was keeping a secret from her. He was standing in her room, pawing through her stuff, taking everything she had left to give, and he wasn't fully sharing himself in return. Wasn't trusting her not to judge him, not to doubt him, not to laugh at the drugged-out redneck raving about blood-sucking creatures prowling the deep Georgian woods.

He started flipping through the remaining pages of the book, partly out of his interest in its contents and partly to distract himself as he finally vocalized the unflattering portion of his tale, "Alright, so, like I said, can't lie to you, girl. _Wasn't_ lying to you, but that weren't the whole truth 'bout that day. Gotta admit I was fuckin' high. Was shroomin' pretty good. Ain't proud of that, but it is what it is. I was high...but the thing is, girl, it don't matter. I swear it weren't the drugs that made me see it. Been on plenty of fuckin' drugs before. Before and since. Ain't proud of that neither, but there you go. Been on a lotta fuckin' drugs and I know when shit ain't real. And that shit was _real_. That shit was as real as you and me."

He was so lost to her presence, so overwhelmed by her spirit in that room, that he didn't catch his mistake. Didn't notice that he'd used a ghost as the gold standard for realism. It was a perfect example of why he'd been so reluctant to talk to her like this in the past, and one of the many reasons why it was so satisfying to do it now.

It just felt so real.

"And you wanna know what the craziest part of it is?," he asked, finally reaching the end of the book. "Craziest part of that whole fuckin' story ain't the chupacabra. Craziest part's that I think you'd fuckin' believe me. I think you'd actually believe that story. Think you wouldn't care that I was trippin' balls. Think you wouldn't care and you'd believe me anyway. Think you'd trust me to know the difference."

"And _that_ , sweetheart, is fuckin' insane," he concluded with a genuine smile, slipping the book carefully back to its original place on the shelf. He planned on reading it cover-to-cover later, was really excited about it, in fact, but he wanted his hands free for the moment. Wanted to get back to touching her things. So he resumed his circuit around the room. He was soon a her nightstand, running his fingers over her beautiful amber glass lampshade, watching the trails left behind as he swept through the fine layer of dust. Then he was finally at her bed.

Her bed.

He honestly wanted to climb right in it. Wanted to pull back the covers, cocoon himself inside and trick himself into believing he could still smell her scent on the sheets after all these years. Just wrap himself up in her warmth and his delusion and never come out. He couldn't allow himself to do that, of course. Couldn't allow himself to do something so dangerous. So he wiped his hand on his pant leg, getting rid of whatever dirt he might have picked up from the lamp, and ran his hand lightly over her quilt instead. He walked slowly from the head of the bed down to the footboard, feeling the softness of the fabric and the looping patterns of the stitching beneath his fingertips. He applied increasing pressure as his path progressed and, by the time he got to the end, he was pushing rather hard on the mattress, taking in the full measure of its firmness.

When he realized just how heavily he was leaning into the bed, he pulled his hand back completely. He walked around and began stroking the worn wood of the footboard, enjoying the way his fingers rose and fell with the pattern of its deep engraving. He stared back up at the bed, cast in long shadows under the rapidly setting sun, and it looked so inviting. So welcoming and warm. He took a few moments to just picture her there, picture her there as he did every night, and revel in the sweetness of that imagined event. That imagined event that had once been real.

That had been real for years and years.

His eyes began to droop and when he snapped them back open again he realized just how dark it had become. It had been a long and exhausting day and he was tired, but he wasn't ready for sleep. Wasn't ready to leave Beth's room so soon after having stayed outside of it for so long. So he pulled himself away from her bed and walked over to the doorway where he kept the lantern he used every night. He lit it and, when he turned back to face the newly illuminated space, the closet that he'd passed by earlier beckoned him. It called out to him, begging him to open it, and the pull gave him a new rush of energy.

He crossed the room, set the lantern down on the dresser and slowly opened the closet door. Like most of the other closets in the old home, it was relatively small and filled to capacity. It wasn't jumbled or overflowing, the contents were all neat and orderly, but every inch of space was being utilized. There were at least a half dozen boxes on the shelf above the clothes rack, mostly shoe boxes but one old-fashioned hat box as well. There was also a pair of blue roller skates with rainbows on the heels, clearly sized for a young child, and a vintage bakelite radio. The floor was covered in two clean rows of shoes, with a few pairs each of the most basic types of footwear: boots, sneakers, sandals, and dress shoes. All of them simple but, he assumed, somewhat stylish.

Nice but not showy.

They all seemed like her aesthetically, but there was something a little strange about picturing her in them. He couldn't remember ever seeing her in anything other than her cowboy boots. He wasn't sure if they'd been hers from before the turn or if she'd picked them up along the way, but as soon as he'd started noticing what she was wearing, she was wearing them. He'd imagined her in other things, of course, but honestly not that often. In his mind, those boots were an extension of her. And he liked them. Staring at those other shoes, though, letting the strangeness pass over him, he decided that he would have really liked seeing her in some of them, too. Would have liked to have seen her dainty little toes peek out from beneath those strappy leather sandals. Would have liked to have seen the delicate arch of her foot bending in those ballet flats. Would have liked to have seen her looking fierce in those surprisingly mannish combat boots.

Combat boots and dog tags.

What the hell had she been playing at?

He laughed at that. Laughed at the idea of that hypothetical shopping spree. At the idea of Beth trying to cultivate that image (which he didn't truly believe had been her intent with those purchases, but still tickled his fancy all the same.) Laughed because it would have been so wrong at the time but became so fucking true later: a fashion that became a fact.

The cute little farm girl turned battlefield badass.

He stared at her shoes for several minutes, surprised by how much he was enjoying imagining her in them. He didn't have a fetish about that kind of thing in general, but he did have a somewhat disproportionate fascination with Beth's feet. Only because he'd wrapped her ankle that night, and inspected it again later on, and it had been the most intimately he'd ever touched her. Those had been the only times he'd actually handled and manipulated her body, skin on skin. He'd carried her a couple of times and held her hand once, but working on her injury had been the most active, the most assertively tactile, thing he'd ever done. And when he'd done it, he'd already known that he loved her. That was post-fruit cocktail and the timeline definitely mattered. He'd loved her then, had been concerned for her then, and had wanted to take care of her in a way that was far different than he'd ever wanted to take care of anyone else before. And he hadn't wanted her to know any of that. He hadn't wanted her to know, so his delight in touching her had been deeply hidden and, somehow, more deeply felt because of it. He remembered marveling at how fucking small her foot was. Remembered his shock at seeing it resting in his palm, thinking that she ran for miles on those tiny things, kept pace with _him_ for miles on those tiny things, and wondering how on earth that was physically possible. And, looking at the shoes in her closet now, he knew he wasn't remembering wrong. He could tell that those little ballet flats would easily fit in his hand, wrist to fingertip, probably with room to spare. Even her bulky combat boots were small, almost comically so the more he considered them. Like kiddie commando gear.

He tore his eyes away from her shoes, and his thoughts away from her feet, and looked straight ahead to take in all the clothes that lined the closet's short rack. They were almost all sweaters and dresses, nice pieces on wooden hangers, most in light, gentle colors though there were a few in darker, earthier tones as well. He imagined that her more casual things, her jeans and t-shirts and whatnot, were stored in the dresser and that the closet's limited space had been reserved for the higher quality items. He couldn't help but reach out and run his hand over each piece, feeling the material slide underneath his fingers. Unsurprisingly, they were all soft, natural fabrics: mostly cotton though a couple of the sweaters felt especially luxurious. Some kind of material he'd never felt before, but assumed had been expensive. When he got near the end of the rack, his hand hit upon something different, though. The fabric was heavy and starched, thick and a little stiff. It looked like it was a white smock or a weird dress or something, but he couldn't tell and found himself pulling it out to inspect it before he gave it a second thought. When he saw what it was, he was stunned.

It was a nurse's uniform.

It was a vintage nurse's uniform.

He'd dreamed he might find one of her Halloween costumes and he wondered if that's what it was. He couldn't imagine a reason she'd have it other than as a costume. It clearly wasn't _made_ to be a costume, though. It really was an old nurse's uniform, probably from the Fifties. Maybe it had belonged to a relative, he mused. Maybe it had been her grandmother's or something. He knew medicine was often a family tradition, maybe Herschel hadn't been the only Greene in that profession. Or maybe she'd just gotten it at the Goodwill or a yard sale. Didn't really matter. One way or another, she had it and all he could do now was picture her wearing it.

"Shit, girl, this ain't even fuckin' fair," he laughed, running his free hand through his hair. "You're fuckin' killin' me with this, you know that, right? Have any idea how hot you'd look in this thing? _Christ_. Can't believe Herschel let you wear this..."

Objectively, he totally could, of course. There was nothing remotely scandalous about it. It had once been considered professional attire in a pretty conservative era, after all. It was a modest dress. Would have seemed modest to anyone else, at least. And _on_ anyone else it would have seemed modest to him, too. But on _her_ , to _him_ , it wasn't modest at all.

It was diabolical.

"Never had that whole nurse fantasy or nothin'," he continued, so entranced by the uniform that he wasn't even aware that he was speaking so freely about his attraction to her. "Never got into that, but _fuck_ I've been missin' out. I've been missin' out on some pretty happy little thoughts there. 'Cause imaginin' you in this thing is one _happy_ fuckin' thought, girl. _Shit_. I'd take an arrow to the gut every day of the goddamn week if you'd come take care of me wearing this."

He smirked as he continued, "Though, I gotta be honest, if you were taking care of me wearing this, I'd be pretty fuckin' pissed if I had an arrow in the gut and couldn't do nothin' about it. I'd definitely wanna do things to you I couldn't manage with a stomach wound."

He would have never dreamed of saying something like that to her in real life, but he was so lost in the moment, that it didn't even register.

"But, if you'd let me, I'd fuckin' try," he laughed, knowing it was completely true. "If you'd let me put my dirty hands on you, I'd fuckin' fight through the pain, girl. Bet you'd have some magical healin' properties anyway. Bet it wouldn't really hurt that bad, no matter how bad it hurt. And if I pulled my stitches or somethin', you could just sew me right back up. Then you could come and take care of me some more and I'd do it all over again."

His body began to respond to that scenario and the sudden pressure of his palm unconsciously adjusting himself brought him quickly back into reality. He dropped his hand to his side immediately, bowed his head and took a deep breath. It was a really enjoyable fantasy, and one he knew he'd be returning to again, but those weren't the kind of thoughts he wanted to be having in her room. It just seemed wrong. Like jerking off in church or something.

He shook away the vivid images that had been populating his mind and tried to cool himself down. When he had himself under control, he looked at the uniform again, not as a sexualized item, but simply as a piece of clothing that she had worn. As with her shoes, he was struck by how small it was. It was a vintage piece, so he couldn't be sure how well it had actually fit her. If it had been snug (which he hoped) or loose (which he couldn't even fathom looking at the thing.) It was definitely in the realm of her size, though. Something that approximated her shape give or take a few inches. And that shape was so fucking tiny. He held his free hand up to the waist just to get a sense of scale, but the image looked too much like him touching her, too much like the pictures he'd been trying to at least temporarily purge from his brain, so he retracted it quickly before he could really get a true comparison. Even without the visual though, it wasn't hard to imagine.

Wasn't hard to remember.

In truth, she hadn't really been that small. Slender, but basically an average height. She was such a powerful figure though, such a huge personality and presence, that it was hard to reconcile it with a delicate form. She seemed so much _bigger_ than him in so many ways that it was hard to believe that she had really been so much smaller. How could all that life, all that energy, all that power, all that love and kindness and compassion, how could all of those things have been contained in such a small package? How could everything she was, all those amazing, incredible, incomparable things that she was, have fit inside that little creature? His body was larger than hers, but so much of him seemed like wasted space. Her body was tiny, but she was full to the fucking brim.

She was so _full_ and that dress was so _empty_.

That dress was so fucking _empty_.

He'd been having such a good time, been feeling so connected to her in such a positive way, but the emptiness of that dress broke something inside of him and he was hit by a crushing wave of grief. Everything he'd encountered up until that point, all the other objects in her room, had felt like moving reminders of her _presence_ , but that uniform suddenly seemed like such a stark symbol of her _absence_. He was holding in his hand this thing that represented the shell of her body: a body that had been destroyed, a body that no longer existed, a body that was gone. Just _gone_. She was gone and she'd never fill that dress, or any dress, again.

She was just a formless being now.

A formless being he was talking to alone in an abandoned house at the end of the world.

He'd been holding the uniform at arm's length, but he pulled it close and grasped it fiercely to his chest. Wrapped both his arms around it and crushed the fabric to him in a desperate embrace. His head dropped like a stone and he began to cry. To sob. Sob uncontrollably in a way he hadn't since he first came to that house. He'd been talking to her all evening and had so many things he wanted to say at that moment: the same simple repetitive statements and pleas that keep bouncing around in his head.

 _I love you. I miss you. I need you. I fucking need you. Please, I need you. I love you. I fucking love you. I fucking love you so much. So much it hurts, Beth. I need you. Please, I need you. Christ, I need you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. Please, I miss you. I miss you. I fucking miss you. I fucking miss you so bad. I need you. Please, I need you. I love you. Christ, I love you. I love you. I love you, Beth. I love you so much…._

He couldn't get a single word out, though. Couldn't do anything but gasp for air and make the deep, guttural sounds of a dying animal as his body was wracked with pain. The day's physical toll finally caught up with him and he collapsed under the weight of his emotions, crashing down to his knees on her bedroom floor. He curled in on himself, deflating under the pressure, and devolved into a shaking ball of human flesh.

He was just quaking mass of skin and muscle with a crumpled up dress at its center.

At some point, the tears stopped coming. At some point, his violent tremors eased into small aftershocks. At some point, his shallow pants became slow, heavy breaths. At some point, he was left completely drained and, in a final act of semi-consciousness, tipped over onto his side and fell asleep in the fetal position on her floor.

At some point, he began to dream.

He was somewhere grim and dingy and horrible. Some mental amalgamation of his childhood trailer and all the cheap apartments and dilapidated mobile homes that came later. Somewhere hollow and soul-crushing. And he was in pain. He was in so much fucking pain. The kind of pain he'd only experienced after the very worst of his many beatings. The kind of pain where he couldn't isolate the sting of the open wounds on his back or the pounding of his cracked skull or the piercing lance of his broken ribs. The kind of pain where his body wasn't _in_ pain. The kind of pain where his body _was_ pain. Where _he_ was pain. Where that's all he was. Pure pain.

And fear.

He was a creature of pure pain and fear and he was alone. He was alone someplace ugly and sad and it was unbearable. It was completely unbearable and utterly hopeless until he sensed a warming presence pass by him. Until he felt the dirty mattress he was laying on dip under a slight, soothing weight. Until he looked up and saw a beautiful Beth dressed in a crisp nurse's uniform, gleaming like an angel and sitting smiling by his side. He'd been frozen in agony before, but now he was just frozen. He couldn't speak, he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything but stare at her. She began to caress his face lovingly, slowing stroking her fingers across his brow, down his jawline, and back up again: repeating the same sweet circuit over and over. Her touch was the most soothing thing he'd ever felt and he yearned to lean into it, to increase the far too light contact, but he couldn't translate his will into action. He soon realized that he was a passive participant in this drama, so he simply succumbed to it. He just lay there absorbing the comfort she had to give. Luxuriating in it as her hand changed its path: weaving her fingers through his hair and grazing her nails gently over his scalp.

Eventually, she began to speak, but he couldn't hear her voice. He saw her pretty mouth open and close, saw her expressions shift with the meaning of each silent word, saw all the emotion pouring out of her hypnotic eyes, but there was no sound to accompany the performance. It was just a beautiful pantomime. He couldn't hear a thing, but he understood every word she was saying.

He _felt_ every word she was saying.

She stroked his hair and she told him that he didn't have to hurt anymore. She told him that he didn't have to miss her anymore. She told him that she was with him. She told him that she was with him and that she would _always_ be with him and that he'd never be alone again. She told him that she loved him. She told him that she loved him and that life was beautiful. Life was beautiful and he was good. She told him that he was _good_. She told him that he was so good and that he would be alright. He was exactly where he was supposed to be and he would be alright.

She told him that everything would be alright.

He woke up to the warm rays of the rising sun, his body in the same position it had collapsed in the night before. He was still curled in a fetal ball around her dress and, this time, his inability to move wasn't part of a dream's trace: it was literal muscle lock. He forced himself to stretch his atrophied limbs and winced as his blood began flowing to his newly unclenched extremities. He was sore as hell and his stomach ached straight through to his backbone. He hadn't eaten since breakfast the previous morning and he was so hungry he was nauseous. Forcing himself to his feet, he swayed a little as he worked to regain full control over his body.

He felt like shit.

He felt like shit, but he didn't care. His physical discomfort was nothing. He'd spend every night with an empty belly on a hard floor if he could have a dream like that. Because the emotions that dream instilled in him, the comfort and the love and the hope, were what he was feeling now most of all. Feeling far more strongly than the muscle aches and hunger pains. In that moment, facing a new day with her dress still clutched tightly in his hand, he felt _her_ more than anything.

He felt _her_ and that was enough to overwhelm everything else.

When he finally remastered his faculties and his eyes adjusted to the bright morning light, he was initially unsure what to do with this thing in his hand. What to do with this uniform that was both a sex object and, now, a strange security blanket. This thing that symbolized two different, but equally desirable, dreams. This thing that was hers, but now literally bore his imprint: its once crisp material wrinkled from the heat and pressure of his body. He didn't think he could return her closet. It just didn't seem like it belonged there anymore. On one upsetting level, it felt like he'd damaged it and he'd be contaminating her other things if put it back there with them. But, on a larger and more deeply felt level, it seemed like it didn't belong in her closet anymore because it simply wasn't _hers_ anymore.

It was _theirs_.

It felt like it was _theirs_ now. It felt like it was theirs and he'd never had anything like that before. With her or anyone else. _They_ didn't have anything. They had shared memories and experiences, but no shared objects. Nothing tangible. Nothing physical that linked the two of them together. And, even if it was through a connection generated solely in a dream, that dress felt like something that bound them to one another. Bound them to one another through something beautiful. And he liked that. He _loved_ that. He loved that and decided that, if it was theirs, he was going to take care of it and enjoy it. He wasn't going to relegate it to a corner of a closet. He was going to hang it up on the curtain rod in his room so he could see it from his bed at night. He'd look at it before he went to sleep each evening and maybe, if he did, he'd have one of those dreams again.

Maybe that lovely little nurse would come take care of him once more. Maybe she'd stroke his face, stroke his hair, stroke him anywhere and everywhere. Maybe she'd make him believe he was a good man, a loved man, a worthy man. Maybe she'd make him see that life could still be good, still have happiness, still have hope.

Maybe she would

 _Probably_ she would. _Probably_ she would because she was Beth and she'd promised that she'd always be with him.

With a small but genuine smile on his face, he shut her closet softly and headed slowly towards her door, ready to start another day. His routine was about to begin anew, but it was going to be even better now than it had been before. It was going to be better because that evening he'd be returning to her room and there was so much more left to discover.

As he reached her doorway, he couldn't help but speak to her in parting. "Thanks for the sweet dreams, girl," he said looking back towards her sunlit space. "Gotta go out huntin' again, but I'll be thinkin' 'bout you when I'm gone. Be thinkin' 'bout you, but I'll be safe this time. Promise. Ain't gonna let a walker keep me from you…"

He turned around and stepped into the hall. "I love you, sweetheart," he added quietly. "See you tonight."

* * *

 _So, there it is. He went into her room. Probably not as exciting as you hoped, but there's still more to be uncovered. Not promising any of that will be exciting, either, but this isn't the end of the exploration. :)_

 _As for Daryl, I hope him talking so much didn't come off as being too crazy or out of character. I kind of viewed his decision to go into her room as a tipping point for him: when he gave himself over to all his impulses to connect and dropped some of his barriers. I also thought it was getting tiresome to write (and I assume to read) something that was entirely internal. I wanted to hear him talk and, in particular, to talk to her….especially with the freedom that comes from her absence and his altered emotional state. It was interesting to me, but I hope it wasn't off-putting to you._

 _Anyway, thanks again for reading! An apologetic farewell to the discerning folks who won't return, an enthusiastic see-you-soon to the generous folks who'll stick around, and hearty Bethyl good-tidings to you all! :)_


	6. Chapter 6

_Greetings, dear readers! Last time around I told you that people were trampling all over each other trying to get away from this story: fleeing from it like it was the literary equivalent of a walker. And this time I get to tell you that the stampede has grown into a mighty human flood! Chapter 5 got less than half the hits as Chapter 4 and the downward spiral continues..._

 _On the plus side, though, many of you who did read the chapter liked it and took the time to let me know. Which I really, REALLY appreciate. I received more reviews on the last chapter than I have on any of the others and they all meant so much to me. SO MUCH. I imagine at this point that there are probably a couple dozen of you that will stick with this story until the end and, while I really hate that I've disappointed so many other people (and will continue to disappoint even more of you), I'm so thrilled to have that core group with me._

 _So, to those couple dozen folks, this one's for you…_

* * *

Over the next week, Daryl became obsessed with a new math.

A new game of weights and measures that he'd strategize over all day and play well into the night.

He'd begun the process of assigning himself daily allotments of Beth when he'd decided to ration the family photo albums to ten pages a night. And, as her whole room opened up to him, he'd still felt bound by that approach - still _enjoyed_ that approach, enjoyed stretching things out, savoring them, letting them linger - but the process of rationing became far more complicated, far more ambiguous.

Dividing her room into equal units wasn't as easy as dividing an album into equal parts.

It _couldn't_ be divided into equal units, that was the thing. It just couldn't. Because the units pretty much already existed and they were inherently unequal. She had thirteen drawers between her dresser, desk, and nightstand; ten boxes between the closet shelf and under the bed; seven smaller containers and tins between her bookshelf and desk; a canvas bookbag on the floor and a messenger bag slung over the back of her desk chair. Thirty-two Beth units in total. Thirty-two unknown little worlds of Beth waiting to be revealed.

But those worlds promised such different things, held such different potential values.

The huge bottom drawer of her dresser wasn't the same as the small drawer of her nightstand, just like the hatbox in her closet wasn't the same as the metal tin sitting on the corner of her desk. And, while there was the obvious and important difference in size, that wasn't the only imbalance between the units. That bottom drawer was big, but it probably contained nothing but her jeans. The nightstand drawer was tiny, but it probably held some of her most intimate items.

They just weren't the same.

So, he ended up devising a sort of point system: assigning each of the thirty-two Beth units a numerical value. That was complicated as well, though. He'd spent weeks in her hallway (and months before that) imagining what would be in all those hidden places, but he had no firm convictions about their contents. Only suppositions. Some stronger than others, but all suppositions nevertheless. And his experience with her button box and the fortune cookie had demonstrated that anything could be lurking anywhere: fueling his already rampant suppositions and allowing them to truly run wild. Run wild and shift all the time. So the math was always in motion. He was constantly calculating and recalculating the value of every Beth unit and the points assigned to each drawer, each box, each bag, changed every day.

And his assessment of his required daily dosage of Beth changed constantly, too. Changed based on the kind of mood he was in, on the kind of day he'd had. Changed on whether that beautiful nurse had come to visit him the night before. Changed on whether he'd missed a rocket squirrel that afternoon and had heard her laughter echoing through the woods. Changed on whether he'd seen a gorgeous bird taking flight and his eyes had watered because he'd wished so badly, so fucking _badly_ , that she could have seen it, too.

Changed based on how much he needed her and how little of her he felt like he could live with for the moment.

He'd set the standard of ten pages in the photo album each night, which he loosely correlated into ten Beth points, and tried to keep his allotment somewhere within that range. And determining just how many Beth points he was going to have, and how he was going to use them, occupied a huge portion of his mental day. He'd gotten the house into solid shape by then and, when he wasn't hunting, he was rebuilding the hundreds of yards of fencing that had been damaged by the herd and trying to secure the property's key access points by installing the kind of long wooden spikes they'd used at the prison gate. He was fortifying the place. Locking it down. It was laborious work, and given the notable lack of a walker threat, arguably unnecessary, but he felt compelled to do it all the same and he threw his back into the effort. It was a task of almost raw physicality, though, and his mind was free to think about Beth.

To think about her and her things and their points and to run numbers and fantasies and plans through his head all day.

All day.

And he loved it. Loved it because it was a game he always won. No matter how many points he decided to give himself for the day or how he chose to play that hand, he always got something. He always got a little bit more of Beth. Just like the photo album, where some nights were filled with frame after frame of that beautiful, beaming little girl and other nights were a _Where's Waldo_ adventure of finding that mischievous grin peeking out from behind her Great Aunt Ida's great fat ass, her room was full of hits and lesser hits. There weren't hits and _misses_ , though. There were B-sides and outtakes from the cutting room floor, but there wasn't anything that wasn't valuable in some way.

It was still a gamble, though, and no matter how much he strategized he never really knew what he was going to get.

So there was the shoebox in her closet that was intriguingly labelled _Summer 2010_ , a box he'd imagined was full of mementos from a treasured season of her life, a box he'd assigned a lot of points to and let himself open only after a particularly hard day, that just ended up containing a pair of sandals. One single pair of sandals. Which had fallen so far short of his hopes, but which he'd still stared at for a good ten minutes. Still stared at and appreciated and enjoyed. Because he could see the imprint her little toes had made in the leather. He could see the indent of her heel worn into the inner sole. He could see _her_. He could see evidence of the heat and pressure and movement of her body shaping the world around her in a permanent way. He could run his fingers over the cast left by her form: touching the very atoms that had once touched and yielded to her.

But then there was the box on her desk constructed from old rulers that he'd assumed had been a pencil case, a box he'd assigned very few points to and let himself have as a minimal offering after a particularly good day, that had ended up being an unexpected treasure trove. It had been filled with folded up pieces of paper: dozens of torn pages from spiral notebooks and index cards and even a few Post-Its. All quotes or poems written in her lovely longhand. (He marveled at how she'd barely been able to draw a believable stick-figure, but could somehow pull off a cursive Q worthy of a Shakespearean scribe.) He'd initially hoped they were her creations, but they were all clearly attributed to someone else: the original authors and, often, the specific source of the material had been noted with care. They were words from writers and philosophers and historical figures that he recognized, and many more that he didn't, but assumed had been similarly influential. Words that had touched her for one reason or another. Words that had moved her heart or lightened her spirit. Words that had given her hope or a license to dream. Words that had made her question her life or see the world in a new way. He'd never know exactly what had spoken to her about all the words, the ideas, the thoughts in that collection. Never know exactly what she'd taken from them: why she'd transcribed them and kept them and, probably, revisited them from time to time.

He'd never know what she'd gotten from them, but he knew what _he'd_ gotten from them. He knew how all those words - all those amazing words that emerged from those great minds and were recorded for all time by her beautiful, beautiful hands - he knew how they touched him. And some of them were so fucking powerful. Ideas about courage and sacrifice that had been inspired by the Civil War, but were just as true now as they'd been so long ago. And felt even _more_ true seeing them in Beth's hand, imagining them being spoken with her conviction, than they ever would have been printed in a dusty old textbook. There were odes to nature that made him fall in love with the sound of a babbling of a brook again and the gentle rustling of fall leaves. Words that made him hear the earth song he was already enchanted by with re-awakened senses and wish he'd known that people wrote things like that about the forest before.

And then there was one poem, written on a blue piece of paper neatly folded into thirds, that hit him like an arrow to the heart. Hit him with a force that he hadn't known the written word could have. He'd known cruelties flung in anger could wound forever, of course, and had learned from Beth that kindnesses uttered in times of need could heal those scars in return. Those words had been part of complex, three-dimensional moments, though: exchanges filled with sight and sound and suspense. Those words had been living, breathing things, not lines of ink on a page. So, he'd been stunned to find that a few strokes of a pen could have as much power as the ugliest insult or the sweetest compliment he'd ever heard. Stunned that a piece of paper could match that intensity and shocked that he'd discovered that through a poem.

Through a fucking _poem_.

Unsurprisingly, he'd never read much poetry. He'd only ever read what he was forced to in school and, often, had done very little of that. And, though his exposure to the form was limited, it had been enough to convince him he didn't like it. He thought it was pretentious and overly emotional and generally pretty pointless. It was just a fancy way for fancy people to use fancy words to talk about things that didn't matter and make other people feel like idiots in the process. People that didn't get their clever little allusions or word plays or inventive rhyming schemes. People that didn't know how to pronounce _o'er_ or _doth_ and embarrassed themselves when it was their turn to read in front of the class.

Just stupid shit for show-offs.

That poem was different, though. That poem was so _fucking_ different. Written in her hand and addressed to the reader, it felt like she was speaking directly to him. And from the very opening line, from the first four words alone, her message seized his soul:

 _Already, you are mine. Rest with your dream inside my dream._  
 _Love, grief, labour, must sleep now._  
 _Night revolves on invisible wheels_  
 _and joined to me you are pure as sleeping amber._

 _No one else will sleep with my dream, love._  
 _You will go, we will go, joined by the waters of time._  
 _No other one will travel the shadows with me,_  
 _only you, eternal nature, eternal sun, eternal moon._

 _Already your hands have opened their delicate fists_  
 _and let fall, without direction, their gentle signs,_  
 _your eyes enclosing themselves like two grey wings,_

 _while I follow the waters you bring that take me onwards:_  
 _night, Earth, winds weave their fate, and already,_  
 _not only am I not without you, I alone am your dream._

 _\- Pablo Neruda_

He'd sat at her desk and read that poem dozens of times that night. Read it over and over and over again. Read it long after he'd had it memorized. He could recite it in his sleep, but he'd kept reading because he'd just wanted to see the words - to see those beautiful words written in her beautiful script - and to hold them in his hand. He'd wanted to lose himself in the graceful loops of the capital L in _Love_ and run his eyes over the undulating waves of the capital E in _Earth_. He'd wanted to savor the way the _we_ had a thicker layer of ink than the surrounding words, like she had written it twice or applied an especially heavy hand when transcribing the phrase _we will go_. Like the _we_ part of that was important. Like the togetherness and the connection that implied were important. Like _they_ were important.

Like they were a _we_.

Like they were a _we_ and those two little letters meant so fucking much. Those two little letters were the world's shortest and grandest novel. Those two little letters and those few extra drops of ink had more weight, held more meaning, than all the words contained in the world's most extensive library. They told an epic and glorious tale and said everything he'd ever wanted to hear.

 _We._

 _We._

 _We._

He'd read that poem for hours, but still assumed he wasn't reading it "right." Assumed that he lacked the literary sophistication to understand what good old Pablo really meant by all those words. He'd assumed that there were things he was missing or misinterpreting, but that hadn't bothered him in the least. Unlike the dark days of school, his imagined failures hadn't made him feel stupid. Hadn't made him feel lacking. Maybe he didn't know what this Spanish guy was trying to tell his lady love decades ago, maybe he was getting the man all wrong, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter what he'd meant. It didn't matter what those words had meant to Pablo or to his woman. It mattered what they'd meant to _Beth_.

It mattered what they meant to _him_.

And those words spoke to him, spoke to him in _her_ voice, and captured so much of what he felt for her and what he could only dream of her feeling for him. Captured her essence, his essence, _their_ essence in symbolism and imagery. In rich similes that touched him so deeply. Expressed how he thought of her, what he got from her, what he needed from her in ways that he never could.

 _Rest with your dream inside my dream…._

It was the sweetest, most tempting command he'd ever heard. He craved to be given it. He yearned to follow it. Wanted to cocoon himself inside of her like that. To lay down every worry, every burden, every pain and surrender everything he had, everything he was, to her comfort. To her care. To rest beside her, to rest _within_ her, to rest and to dream together forever and ever.

 _Joined to me you are pure as sleeping amber..._

God, how he wanted that. Wanted to be joined to her and have a taste of her purity. Have her cleanse him with her goodness and her light. Her rich warm light that was so perfectly represented by amber. A substance that suited her so beautifully: the golden jewel of the forest, the glowing gem of the trees. Suited her so beautifully and reminded him so much of her in such real ways. Reminded him of her admiring that amber bracelet while they raided that house on the run from the prison. Reminded him of his journey to the farm and his detour by Amber Lake. Reminded him of how much he'd wanted to share that trip with her. Reminded him of feeling like he _had_ shared that trip with her, of feeling like she really _had_ been there when he'd finally pulled over and taken a moment to admire the view. Reminded him of her amber glass lampshade that he looked at every night now, that he imagined her reading by or falling asleep under every night now, that had always glowed so warmly despite having never been turned on. It glowed with its own inner light and though its glorious reflection of the sun: emitting more energy than it was given and enhancing the wonders of nature. Just like her. And he wanted that. He wanted to be embedded in her sweet amber. And he wanted to be amber, too. He wanted to be warm and glowing and good. He wanted to be joined to her and he wanted to be pure.

 _No other one will travel the shadows with me, only you…_

He'd always associated shadows with darkness and danger and ugliness. Associated them with things he'd never associate with her. Shadows were where predators lurked. Shadows were where bad things happened and where no one intervened when they did. But, in that line, in that poem, he saw them in a new light. The shadows they were traveling weren't the haunted places where evil things resided, they were the enchanted places where _good_ things had a chance to grow. Where good things had a chance to grow wild and free: unobserved and unjudged by the rest of the world. He'd always felt like he'd lived in the shadows - in those dark, dangerous, ugly ones - but those words had made him realize that, while he still roamed the dusky margins, he lived in completely different shadows now. These were completely different shadows than they'd ever been before. Yes, they still cut him off from the rest of the normal world, but they offered him such a wonderful world in return. He lived in a nebulous realm, in a shaded pocket of reality, and he could do whatever he wanted to there. He could be with _Beth_ there. Because she lived in the shadows now, too. She was also a creature of this netherworld. She couldn't be seen with the naked eye, but she was always there just out of sight. She was there, and so was he, and they could travel those shadows together. Travel them with no one else. They could live in those shadows, love in those shadows, thrive in those shadows. And, suddenly, associating her with darkness felt just as accurate as associating her with light. She was both. She was everything. And, in the shadows, _they_ could be everything, too.

 _Already your hands have opened their delicate fists…_

She brought him so much comfort. So much calm. So much peace. When he thought of her, when he dreamed of dreaming of her, his body relaxed. His tension uncoiled. She did that for him. She did that for him night after night as he lay in bed resting his worn muscles and staring at the silhouette of a nurse's uniform darkening his bedroom window. He thought that maybe that's what old Pablo meant. That he was referring to the physical slackening that comes as a prelude to slumber. And while that was definitely applicable, _profoundly_ applicable, it was a figurative interpretation of that phrase that struck him the most. His torment over her death aside, Beth had helped him let go of so much rage. Let go of so much anger. She'd helped him _want_ to unclench his fists, made him _want_ to be a gentler person, made him _want_ to use his hands for so many things other than fighting. His fists were anything but delicate, but she'd made him believe that his _hands_ could be. She'd made him believe that _he_ could be. That he could be soft and caring and good. And she was still making him believe that. Which is why seeing that word _Already_ in her handwriting touched him so deeply. It was like she was reminding him of the changes he'd already made. Of the better man he'd already become. Like she was fighting back against any self-doubt and reassuring him. _You've already done this, Daryl. You've already put it away. You've already burned it down. Don't you see that, Daryl? Don't you see?_

And, then, of course, there were those final words. Those final words that said it all.

 _I alone am your dream._

That line echoed in his head from the moment he read it. Would echo in his head until his dying day. Because it was the purest expression of his greatest truth. She alone was his dream. It was a simple and as profound as that. She alone was his dream. She was his dream as a person. As a friend. As a woman that he would have spent the rest of his life with. Spent the rest of his life loving and protecting and providing for. Spent the rest of his life trying to be worthy of. And she was also his dream for all that she represented. His dreams of respect, of acceptance, of comfort. His dreams of hope, of happiness, of joy. She was all of his dreams: the dreams he'd always had, the dreams he'd long since abandoned, and the dreams he'd never dared dream in the first place.

She was all of his dreams.

She _alone_ was all of his dreams.

All her other papers, all her other quotes and poems, went back in the box, but that one went up on his dresser: finding a home next to all the other trinkets and treasures that were slowly engulfing the space. He'd been briefly bothered by the fact that he was taking a message so personally that had clearly not been intended for him. Beth hadn't had him in mind when she'd read that poem and she hadn't been thinking of him when she'd written it down. He'd known that. He'd known that and that knowledge would have normally made him feel pathetic. Made him feel like a desperate man who was just sad enough to fool himself into believing that he could get the girl. That hadn't happened, though. The concerns he'd had were fleeting, and surprisingly shallow, and he'd become comfortable with the poem's presence in his collection - and its place in his heart - almost immediately.

If anything, his lack of concern had been his greatest concern. He'd wondered just how far gone he was that things like that didn't matter to him anymore. That _reality_ didn't matter to him anymore. It upset him. It upset him but when he'd start to examine it, he'd get tripped up on the question of what reality even was. What reality even was and if there was really only one version of it. Yes, there was the objective reality where a young Beth Greene, who'd never met a Daryl Dixon, saw a poem she thought was beautiful and wrote it down. Wrote it down because, at the time, she'd thought she loved someone like that (someone who definitely wasn't him.) Or wrote it down because she'd wanted someone to love _her_ like that (again, someone who definitely wasn't him.) Or wrote it down simply because she'd thought it was special and worth recording. There was that reality. But couldn't there also be another reality, too? A reality where she _did_ write it down for him. Wrote it down for him, saved it for him, without even knowing that that's why she'd done it. Couldn't there have been a reality where that poem seized her heart for reasons that baffled her at the time and that had only now become clear these many years later? A reality where she hadn't understood why she'd put that poem in that box when she was still flesh and blood, but where her spirit is now thankful that she had. A reality where time had exposed the hidden motivation, the unknown necessity behind the act, and revealed that the message really _was_ intended for him.

Couldn't that be possible, too?

Those kind of thoughts made him feel insane, though, so he tried to abandon that line of thinking. Tried to abandon _all_ lines of thinking and just feel. Just let himself feel the solace that poem brought him, the solace that all of her things brought him, and take whatever happiness from life that he possibly could.

Because, honestly, why the fuck not?

Why the fuck _not_ scrape every last ounce of happiness out of life that he possibly could? He wasn't hurting anyone. Wasn't hurting _her_. Those were his shadows and he could do whatever he wanted to there. And he wanted to enjoy that poem. Wanted to believe in its message. In the meaning he, rightly or wrongly, derived from it. He wanted to, so he would.

So he did.

...

He was pissed.

He was dripping a faint trail of blood through the Greene family home, starting to get light-headed and actually _well past_ being pissed.

He'd been working at securing the property's South access road all day and his knife hand had slipped while sharpening one of the spikes, slicing a deep gash in the opposite hand that he'd been using to steady the lumber. He'd been lost in thoughts of Beth at the time, as he almost always was, but he didn't think the distraction had been to blame. It had just been the kind of stupid, garden-variety accident that can happen after hours of monotonous work. The cut went all the way across the back of his hand, severing some of the prominent veins that once flowed to his fingers, and his whole forearm had been running red by the time he'd grabbed his rag from his back pocket and wrapped it around the wound. In a rush, he'd slung his crossbow awkwardly across his shoulder, put the still bloody knife back in his hip sheath, and started to race back home. He'd been nearly a quarter mile from the house, though, and, as his heart rate picked up, so did his bleeding and he'd forced himself to slow his pace on the final stretch to the front door.

Not for the first time, he was immensely grateful that Herschel had been a veterinarian and headed straight for his downstairs office. The muddy squatter and his companion had used up some of the medical supplies treating whatever calamity had - at the very least - destroyed the living room couch, further reducing a stock that had already been well-used by his group when they too lived on the farm, but he knew there were still some things left in that big, white metal cabinet. Definitely some bandages and a quarter-bottle of antiseptic, he remembered that, but he wasn't exactly sure what else. Wasn't sure if he had what he really needed.

Wasn't sure if he had a suture kit.

There was no denying that he needed stitches. He'd been injured enough to know when shit was really bad: to know what he could ignore and what he'd actually have to acknowledge and address. And this was the kind of wound that, back in the old world, he'd have gone to the hospital for. Would have actually broken down and sat for hours in a shitty waiting room, getting glared at by the nurses and the worried moms with their sick kids, and paid a couple hundred bucks he didn't have to get sewn up. Would have put up with being taunted by Merle, being called _Darylina_ and a pussy, to get treated. Taunts that never would have stopped because the thing was going to scar like a bitch and Merle would have never let that shit go.

And he _still_ would have gotten those stitches.

It was probably due to blood loss, but he almost passed out when he opened the cabinet and saw two suture kits sitting on the bottom shelf. Not one, but two. His relief was overwhelming and he said a silent thank you to both Herschel, for having bought them, and to the muddy squatter, for having left them behind. He grabbed the top kit, the antiseptic and some bandages and went into the bathroom down the hall. He unwrapped the rag from his hand, wincing as the soaked fabric pulled away from his flesh, and started to rinse the gash off under the sink. It was still bleeding heavily, so after less than a minute, he turned off the tap, wrapped his hand back up in a towel, and sat down on the toilet.

He'd done some rudimentary stitches before, back when he was a kid and he'd had no other options, but it had been a long time. And he'd never used an actual suture kit. Had never used proper materials, just his mother's needle and thread. He figured it wouldn't be too hard, though, it was pretty simple in principle, and he ripped open the kit and started to get to work right away. With his injured hand swaddled in a thick towel, and his head slightly spinning, it was a challenge to thread the needle and tie the end knot. It took him what, in his mind, was far too long and he was cursing with frustration by the time he was through. The worst part lay ahead, though. He was all too aware of that. What lay ahead was going to hurt.

A lot.

He unwrapped his hand, poured some antiseptic quickly over the wound, and threw in the first stitch without giving himself a chance to think about it. Without giving himself a chance to hesitate. He knew he just had to attack it. Had to detach himself from the act and get to work. He had to try to ignore the pain and pretend that that bleeding piece of meat wasn't really a part of his body. It was just this thing he was lacing thread through.

It was just the canvas for his gruesome needlepoint.

Unsurprisingly, that was easier said than done and he had to force himself to complete the first few passes through gritted teeth. Those first five stitches or so made him increasingly queasy and a small part of him began to worry if he'd be able to complete the job. About a third of the way in, though, he finally grew more or less numb to it and the task became far easier to handle. Became methodical. As he worked his way across his hand, he realized that that was the first time since he'd come to the Greene home that he wished he wasn't alone. He wished he was with _Beth_ all the time, of course, but that was very much about wanting _her_ and not at all about wanting other _people_. But sitting in that bathroom, awkwardly stitching his own hand, self-doctoring a wound that was actually pretty fucking serious, he really wished there was someone else with him.

And not just for that moment, not just for the fact that he'd really rather not be operating on himself, but for all the moments that were going to come later. Because that wound was going to take weeks to heal. Weeks where he might get an infection and he'd have to be the one to mount a fever-ridden mission for antibiotics. Weeks where he was going to have to hunt and loading his crossbow was going to be a bitch because his grip would be weak and every time he'd use his hand he'd be pulling at his stitches. Weeks where his life was going to be more difficult and more dangerous because he was on his own. Because no one had his back.

No one.

And he really didn't like that. Really didn't like idea of missing other people, of _needing_ other people. He didn't like seeing the downsides to his new life. He didn't like acknowledging that there even _were_ downsides to his new life. Didn't like thinking that there was anything lacking in his world other than Beth. He didn't want to have those thoughts at all, so he decided to ignore them entirely. Ignore that unsettling need for companionship gnawing at his gut and lose himself in Beth for the evening. Lose himself in _her_ companionship. When he was done tending to his hand, he was going to retreat to her room, hide in that beautiful bubble, and just forget about it all.

It took twenty-four stitches to get there.

It took twenty-four obviously amateur stitches to close the wound and he took that as a sign that he'd get twenty-four Beth points that night. It was more than twice his average allotment, but he needed it. He needed to be connected to her, to immerse himself in her, to absorb as much of her company as he could possibly allow. As he could possibly justify. And, looking at the vicious red gash stretching across the back of his hand, and the uneven black lines that held it together, twenty-four Beth points seemed pretty justifiable. So, as he bandaged the swelling, but now sealed, cut and cleaned up the mess that he'd made of the bathroom, he began to plot how he'd use those points. Wasn't actually much of a plot. He knew exactly what he wanted: the big ticket item that he'd been denying himself. The prize that he hadn't felt he'd earned until today.

Her nightstand drawer.

Other than her underwear drawer, which he knew from enough raided homes was where a lot of people hid their secrets (and which he had _exceedingly_ mixed feelings about opening), her nightstand drawer seemed like the most personal of all the unexplored Beth units. The most private. It was also one of the greatest mysteries, because it had the least amount of obvious potential contents. The dresser clearly had clothes, the desk clearly had functional items, and the bookbag clearly had school materials. They could all be housing other things, too, of course. Undoubtedly _were_ housing other things, any manner of other things, but at least _some_ of their contents were predictable.

The nightstand really felt wide-open, though.

If her bible hadn't been on her desk, he'd have guessed it would have been in there. If she had been older, or bolder, or just an entirely different person in general, he would have thought it might contain something sexual. If she had been a _lot_ older he would have thought it might contain medicine: those late night antacids and hypertension pills he'd seen in so many master bedrooms. But none of those things were going to be in there. No bible, no lube, no Rolaids. He was sure of that. He was confident about what _wouldn't_ be in there, but had no idea about what actually _would_. The only thing he halfway expected to find, the only thing that he somewhat anticipated, was her diary.

If it wasn't in her desk, it would be in there.

And he _really_ wanted to find her diary. He didn't want to read it. Well, he _did_ want to read it, wanted to read it quite desperately, but he didn't think he ever would. Didn't think he'd ever let himself completely invade her privacy like that. He could make a solid argument that everything else in her room, all of her clothes and her books, her collectables and her photos, had been seen by plenty of other people with her full knowledge and consent. And, even if they hadn't, that she wouldn't mind him seeing them. That she'd willingly share those parts of herself it would help ease his grief. He could argue that with everything else, but her diary was - by definition - something that was never meant to be seen by anyone. Something that was designed to be hers and hers alone. And he didn't think he could take that away from her. He didn't think he could take that away from her, but he wanted to find it anyway. He wanted to hold it in his hand. He wanted to hold the weight of all of her thoughts and all of her emotions in his hand. Wanted to feel the heft of all those recorded days that he'd never witnessed, but which had helped shape the woman he loved. He wanted to know that it was there and that he could read it, whether he ever did or not. Wanted to know that there was a part of her that he could access that no one else ever had. That no one else ever _would_. He wanted that potential for intimacy.

Even if it was a stolen intimacy.

Even if he never acted on it.

He wanted it.

His hand was throbbing and he was still feeling a bit woozy, so he forced himself to eat something before he went upstairs to claim his prize. Following the routine he'd established out of respect for Herschel, he sat down at the dining room table and ate one of the last jars of Patricia's pickled okra that he'd found buried at the bottom of the root cellar. He even used a fork, another habit he'd more or less adopted as part of his attempt to reflect the values of the home. A habit that had felt so strange at first, and which he sometimes still eschewed, but was becoming more natural the longer he lived there. As a meal, it was an ungodly amount of vinegar to ingest in a single sitting, but it was the fastest dinner he could put together and speed was his primary goal. Polishing off the jar, he finally had some calories in his system and his nausea from blood loss gave way to a pickled queasiness. It wasn't a more enjoyable sensation, but was it far less worrisome, and he finally felt steady enough to go up to Beth's room.

As usual, a palpable wave of relief passed over him as he stepped through her door. Though it had seemed so terrifying at first, entering her space always calmed him. Always soothed him. And he felt himself relaxing, felt a true physical release of tension, in just the half dozen steps it took to get to her nightstand. He wanted to sit on her bed as he went through the drawer, but he hadn't allowed himself to do that yet. Hadn't allowed himself do anything more than simply touch her bed. It still felt especially sacred to him and, as he currently stood covered in dirt and dried blood, it definitely wasn't the time to cross that threshold. So he sat down cross-legged on the floor, instead, pulled the drawer out of the nightstand entirely, and set it across his lap to inspect it from there.

And he was right.

He was absolutely right. There in the drawer was a green cloth-bound notebook tied shut with a thin, darker green ribbon. It was simple, but it was special, and it was clearly her diary. The pen that she'd used to write in it - a higher end, but still pretty standard, black ballpoint - lay just a few inches to the left. He ran his hand over the book, feeling the soft cloth beneath his fingertips and the slick polish of the ribbon, before taking it out of the drawer. He held it in his good hand, not wanting to risk any blood leaking through his bandage and damaging it, and just savored the feel for a few moments. Not just the feel of it in his palm, but the feel of it in his _soul_. That combination of comfort and excitement that possessing the item provided. He was too amped up from his injury, and too preoccupied by the potential for other discoveries, to truly appreciate the meditative value of the diary, though. He'd savor it later, but for now he needed to explore. So, after a minute of quiet appreciation, he set the book carefully by his side and went back to inspecting the other objects in her drawer.

There honestly wasn't that much else in there and, understandably, the biggest item was the first to catch his eye. On the bottom of the drawer, previously covered by her diary, was the funeral program for her grandmother: Millicent Avery Greene. Printed on heavy white cardstock and engraved in an elegant silver script, it was simple and classy and seemed like a fitting tribute to the woman. A woman he'd never met, but whose life he'd watched unfold before his eyes while sitting alone in her granddaughter's hallway.

A woman he'd never met, but felt like he actually knew.

The Greene family photo albums began with a series of black and white portraits depicting the small church wedding of a very young Millie Avery to a much older Thomas Greene: a handsome, if completely mismatched, couple who seemed very much in love. And, over the ensuing volumes, Daryl had watched that teenage bride grow into an elderly grandmother. He'd seen her entire life story told in photos: pregnancies and births, picnics and family vacations, holidays and anniversaries. And, throughout it all, across all those years and all those personal changes, she'd seemed like a consistent delight. Always smiling, always laughing, always embracing the person next to her. Or sometimes crying, but always out of joy. Out of love and out of happiness. Crying when she first held a baby Herschel in her arms and again when she held a baby Beth. Crying when her little Herschey graduated from college and when he married the girl of his dreams. Crying when her dear Tommy built her a trellis for her birthday and surprised her with a handmade porch swing on their twentieth anniversary.

A porch swing that was still there and still rocked like a dream.

A porch swing that Daryl had enjoyed more than one cigarette on and was his favorite place to sit when he was outside.

A porch swing that he'd liked from the beginning, but _loved_ once he saw that photo of a tearful Millie and a proud as _hell_ Tommy Greene. Proud because he'd made something beautiful for someone beautiful. Proud because that woman was his wife. Proud because he'd made her happy. Proud because she made him proud.

He pulled the program out of the drawer and for the first time he noticed the dates marking her life: Millie had died just a few weeks before the outbreak hit, just a few weeks before everything fell apart. That might actually be one of the last funeral programs ever printed, he mused. She was among that final batch of people who died in a world where the formal rituals of bereavement were still practiced: where there were still undertakers and stationery stores and florists to service the needs of the dearly departed and the loved ones they'd left behind. And he was really shocked by that timing. Shocked that she'd lived that long. He still had about seven years left in the photo albums, but in the most recent pictures he'd seen of her she was already well into her eighties and looking rather frail. She still radiated energy, still seemed like an active presence, but she was definitely a pale shadow of the robust country girl she'd once been. He'd unconsciously assumed that those were some of the last photos that he'd be seeing of her and that she'd died years before the turn.

But she hadn't.

She'd lived to see the very tail-end of the good old world - a world that had never been that good to Daryl, but that he knew had been good to _her_ \- and then she caught the last ticket out of town before it all went to hell. And, when he thought of that life arc, he was so happy for her. So happy for this woman who'd been the matriarch to a family he loved so much. He thought it was wonderful that she'd been able to leave this world believing that her son was safe and happy, that he was married to a loving woman, that they had amazing children together, and that their lives were going to be beautiful. The family she'd help create was going to live out its carefree days in the home she'd spent her lifetime shaping and they were going to be alright.

Everything was going to be alright.

She'd died believing that and the old cynic in him would have scoffed at her delusion, but the newer, more spiritual, part of him thought that it was beautiful. Thought that it was the ending she'd deserved. The ending all good people deserve, but are almost always denied. He was so glad that she'd had that for herself and so deeply glad for Herschel that he'd had that, too. That he hadn't had to worry about caring for his aging mother in an apocalypse. Because it had been clear in the photos that he'd loved her tremendously, and had been close to her his whole life, and Daryl could only imagine that dealing with her fear of the undead would have crushed him. Thinking of that, thinking of that timeline, he suddenly realized that Herschel had lost his mother, his wife, and his stepson in less than two months. Lost his mother, his wife, and his stepson _and_ faced the oncoming Armageddon in less than two months. Lost all of that, faced all of that, when he was already in his mid-sixties and still had two daughters to take care of: an aging, grieving man trying to protect his children in an increasingly brutal world.

How hard must that have been for him?

He'd long since come to the conclusion that Herschel had been one tough son-of-a-bitch, but that really made him appreciate the man anew. He couldn't help but reflect on himself, on his own losses and how he'd handled them. Look at how lost _he_ was, look at how much _he'd_ fallen apart, after losing Beth. A woman he'd only known for a couple of years and had only loved for a couple of months. A woman he'd never even kissed. Herschel had known and loved Annette for almost two decades and they'd done plenty more than kiss. They'd lived a lifetime together, had a child together, raised a family together. And Herschel had lost all of that - lost all of that love generated over all of those years - and he'd lost one of his children, too. And it wasn't even the _first_ _time_ that that had happened to him. He'd lost Maggie's mother as well. He'd buried two wives and one child, watched the world come to an end, had his entire faith in both science and God shaken, lost a leg in a butchered amputation, and _still_ he'd told silly jokes to the Woodbury kids in the prison courtyard. Still he'd smiled and gently teased Daryl about his ill manners. Teased him in a way that had felt good-natured and friendly. As if, underneath it all, he'd actually _liked_ Daryl's ill manners. Had actually liked _Daryl_.

After everything that had happened to him, Herschel never became embittered by it and Daryl truly marveled at that strength of character.

He was pretty sure that it was a trait he didn't share.

The funeral program had taken him down a winding mental side path, and he shook his head free of all thoughts of Millie and Herschel and, setting the paper to the side, returned his attention to girl all three of them loved so much. All that was left in the drawer were handful of small objects: a pink tin of organic lip-balm, a little flashlight shaped like a ladybug, a vintage beaded coin purse that looked like it had once been a vibrant yellow but was now faded to a soft buttercream, and - bewilderingly- an old baby food jar with three acorns in it. Those acorns had him so puzzled that it took him a few seconds to spot the fifth and final thing remaining in that drawer. Partially covered by the coinpurse was an ornate pair of resin chopsticks, which had the appearance of carved ivory and were capped with silver tips. If he hadn't known any better, he'd have been completely thrown by them. Completely puzzled by the presence of decorative Asian eating utensils in her bedroom. He _did_ know better, though. He knew better because he knew exactly what they were and why she had them.

He knew because Beth had told him.

And they weren't chopsticks at all. They were hairpins. They were a pair of chopstick-style hairpins that her Aunt Colleen had gotten her in Chinatown on long-desired trip to New York. Beth had been thirteen-years-old at the time and she'd absolutely loved them. Not only were they beautiful, but - to a young girl from rural Georgia - they had an incredibly exotic backstory. They'd been among her favorite possessions and, because of their value, she'd reserved them for special occasions. That had included her high school yearbook photos, which she'd worn them for every single year: a choice Maggie had teased her over, but that Beth had been firmly committed to.

She'd told him about those hairpins one rainy night in some random mobile home they'd been lucky enough to stumble upon. They'd been on the run for weeks and it had been an especially rough day. And when she'd first started talking, he'd been totally lost. She'd shared stories about her past before, of course, but that had really been a story about her _hairpins_. She'd described them in great detail and he'd been completely disbelieving that she'd chosen that subject to try to engage him in a conversation. That with everything they were facing, after having been nearly killed twice by walkers that very afternoon, she'd be talking to him about fashion accessories.

He should have known better, of course, because that hadn't been her point at all. She'd gotten off on a bit of a tangent talking about Aunt Colleen and the yearbook photos, which she'd had a tendency to do, but she'd brought up the hairpins for a practical reason. Sensing his confusion, she'd rapidly shifted gears and explained that those pins would make really handy weapons. That it would be great to have a couple sharp sticks tucked into her hair that she could just whip out and attack with if all other options failed. And they'd be especially helpful for non-walker threats, she'd furthered, because most people probably wouldn't recognize them as a weapons at all.

He'd be so caught off guard by that statement, so upset by the idea of Beth needing to fight off human attacker, a presumably _male_ attacker, that he hadn't responded to her right away. She'd taken his silence as disbelief, or maybe just misunderstanding, and before he'd known it, she'd walked into the kitchen and started rooting around in the drawers. After a few moments of digging, she'd found what she was looking for and returned back to him, beaming, with two pencils in her hand. She'd wrapped her hair up in a quick bun and stuck the pencils through the mass to hold it in place. That night was post-fruit cocktail and the only thing he'd been able to think of in that moment was that she'd looked like a hot librarian. Like the sweet little school teacher every boy lusted over. She'd been smiling at him so radiantly, so innocently, and he'd been so lost in her beauty, that he'd been caught completely off guard when she'd suddenly seized one of the pencils from her bun and lunged like she was making for his jugular. It'd been play-acting and she'd been far enough away that she couldn't have hit him even if she'd wanted to, but it had startled the shit out of him and he'd reached forward and grabbed her wrist out of pure instinct: holding it firmly in place with a bruising force. When he'd realized what he was doing, he'd dropped his hand immediately, filled with an instant remorse for having handled her that roughly. He'd known that he hadn't hurt her, but he'd started to apologize right away. Started to mumble out _fuck_ and _I'm sorry_ and _you alright?_ while he'd stared at his feet in shame.

And she'd just laughed.

She'd laughed and she'd said that, of course, she was alright.

 _I'm counting on you to have my back out there, Daryl. Would be a pretty bad sign if I could get the jump on you with a pencil. Especially when I told you I was planning on it. Trust me, that wasn't something I was hoping to succeed at._

She'd smiled warmly and genuinely and he'd known that everything was alright. He'd known that he hadn't hurt her, of course, but he'd been so worried that he'd _scared_ her. After the way he'd manhandled her at the moonshine shack, he'd been terrified of her fearing him physically. Fearing that he'd turn his size and his strength against her. Terrified that she might, even for a moment, see him the way his mother had seen his father. But with her smile and her laughter and her sincere understanding of his reaction, she'd eased so many of those concerns. They'd continued to linger and reared their ugly heads from time to time until the day she died, but that night he'd felt secure in the knowledge that she'd felt safe with him.

He hadn't had that much confidence in the actual hairpin plan, though. He hadn't thought a wooden chopstick would be strong enough to pierce the skull of even the most decayed walker, unless she got it straight through the eye socket or the ear canal. And he'd had serious doubts about how much damage it could do to a healthy person before it just snapped in half. Seemed more likely to piss an attacker off than actually thwart their advance. He'd liked her enthusiasm, though, and he'd _really_ liked the image of her with those pencils in her hair.

So, logical or not, he'd made it a mission to find her a pair of chopsticks.

They'd only raided a dozen or so other houses before they'd gotten to funeral home and, predictably, he hadn't found any there. He hadn't found any when she was alive, but on that long march to D.C, he'd kept looking. He hadn't _wanted_ to keep looking. He just hadn't been able to stop himself. Hadn't been able to let that idea go. It had been one of the only ideas he'd ever had of something special he could do for her, something that would show her that he listened and that he cared, and it had just been too painful to simply abandon it.

He'd finally found a pair on a woman's dresser in an upscale house somewhere in North Carolina. They weren't like the ones Beth had described, like the ones he was seeing now, but they had been lovely in their own way. They'd been made of wood and painted in a light turquoise enamel, decorated with gentle, winding vines and dotted in small white flowers. Those had been the dark days when he was totally numb, when he was still a ghost, but the moment he saw those hairpins, his emotions had come roaring back to life. All his grief had come roaring back to life with a vengeance and he'd started to cry. He'd just stood there with those chopsticks in his hand and let weeks of unshed tears finally fall.

At some point, Rick had come into the room. They'd been raiding the house together and he'd no doubt become suspicious by his partner's prolonged absence. Though he was normally aware of such things, Daryl had been so lost to his pain that he'd had no idea Rick was even there until he'd started speaking.

 _She would've like those. Would've looked good on her...Remember blue was her favorite color. Carl used to have such a fucking crush on her,_ he'd laughed. _Think he told me about all of Beth's favorite things at least a hundred times that winter before the prison. Gotta say, the kid had taste..._

Daryl had loved Rick so much in that moment. The man had changed a lot since he'd met him, and they'd grown apart in many ways, but in that moment he'd remembered why he loved Rick like a brother. Loved him for knowing that those were for Beth and for acting like that was perfectly normal. Loved him for trying to make light of a painful situation by reminding him of Carl's juvenile advances. Loved him for not giving him platitudes or trying to console him or even really acknowledging his emotional state at all. He'd just said what he said and then told Daryl that he was going to go ahead and check out the basement and he'd meet him at the front door when he was done. And then he'd left without looking back, completely casually, giving Daryl the chance to pull himself together in private.

By the time they'd met back up downstairs, the chopsticks had been in his bag and his mask had been firmly back in place.

And no one else had ever known about his breakdown.

He'd carried those hairpins with him all the way to Alexandria, but he'd destroyed them in a fit of despair a few weeks after they'd arrived, He'd been out hunting for a couple of days and he'd just felt so fucking empty. Felt so fucking empty and alone and dying. He'd lost everything and now he was stuck in this horrible parody of suburbia. Alexandria had flipped some switch within him and suddenly everything pretty had seemed ugly, everything beautiful had seemed absurd. Those hairpins had seemed absurd. They'd seemed pointless and stupid and like a reminder of everything good that could never fucking be. They'd been a cruel taunt and he'd been the idiot carrying them around every day. The delusional fool toting around a meaningless token for a dead girl who he'd never have been worthy of anyway. A girl who he'd gotten killed in the first place. Sitting by the fire that night, roasting a squirrel that he'd had no desire to actually eat, he'd reached into his bag with a heart full of rage, full of anger and sadness and despair, and grabbed the chopsticks with both hands: snapping them in half with far more force than was needed to complete the job. They'd shattered into almost a dozen pieces and he'd thrown every single one of them into the fire, watching the enamel briefly bubble and crack before the small bits of wood had been quickly reduced to ash.

And he'd felt an instant and awful regret. A regret so deep and gut-wrenching that it had literally made him nauseous and, if he'd had anything to eat at all that day, he probably would have been sick. He would have been physically sickened by what he'd done. Because he'd done something _she_ would never do. Something she would have never done in a million years. He'd destroyed something beautiful for no reason.

He'd destroyed something beautiful for no reason.

If he hadn't wanted them anymore, if they'd just been too painful to keep, he could have given them to someone else or simply left them as an offering to the forest. Dropped them by the nearest tree and left them for the Earth to reclaim or for some wandering soul to find. But, no, he'd ruined them instead. Obliterated them. He'd taken something special, something that could never be recreated, something that he'd gotten because they'd reminded him of _her_ , and he'd destroyed it because he was in pain. Because he was a miserable, selfish bastard and he was in pain.

That had been such a terrible night and he'd wallowed in self-hatred well past dawn, but those had still been the dark numb days and pretty soon he'd returned to his mechanical existence. He hadn't thought about those hairpins in at least a couple months and, he realized with surprise, that he'd never considered the fact the he might find them in her room. They were one of the very few things that he'd actually known that she'd owned and he'd never even thought about finding them. It was a startling omission but, ultimately, it didn't matter. He'd found them. He'd found them and he was so fucking grateful that he had. So grateful to have an object that had been so important to Beth for reasons that he truly understood. An object that he knew the _real_ story behind. And, even better, an object that _he_ had a real story behind, too. A real memory of her to associate with. A wonderful memory of his sweet little nurse as a fierce little librarian: a pencil-wielding angel ready to defend the stacks at all costs. (And, yes, he had the memory of his breakdown to associate with it, too. A memory of his despair and his wanton destruction. But, sitting in Beth's room, holding those hairpins in his hand, he couldn't truly feel any of those uglier emotions. He could only feel the happiness, the satisfaction, the sweetness. He could only feel the good.)

He stroked his fingers over the chopsticks, running them from end-to-end in a continuous flowing motion, feeling the deep, intricate pattern of the carving and the cool smoothness of the silver caps underneath his skin. He spent countless minutes just imagining her wearing them. He pictured her wearing them to a garden party, dressed in that pale blue sundress that hung in the middle of her closet - a blue that would look so good against her skin and so beautifully compliment her eyes - and donning those infamous _Summer 2010_ sandals. He pictured himself pulling them out of her hair and watching her tresses fall in a cascade of gold. He pictured himself running his hands through that new-freed mane and kissing her as fiercely and as passionately as he possibly could. He imagined her yielding to him softly and warmly and fully.

And then he imagined her kissing him back.

He pictured her wearing the after the turn, imagined her wearing them as the sweet soldier he fell in love with, dressed a ratty tank-top and diabolically tight jeans. Her clothes, her skin, her hair were all smeared with blood, but she looked like an avenging angel and those ivory hairpins were her halo. He rewrote the memory of the night with the pencils and in that newly envisioned world, she was wearing those instead. And when she lunged at him as if to attack, he still grabbed her wrist but, instead of using his grip to hold her at bay, he used it to pull her close. He wrapped her chopstick-wielding arm behind her back and drew her body flush with his. And, again, he kissed her. Kissed her like he always dreamed of.

And, again, like he always dreamed of, she kissed him back.

Before he got too carried away by those fantasies, he forced himself to bring his attention back to the real world. Refocusing his mind on the actual physical objects in his hand, taking in the full measure of their solidity and their weight, he realized that Beth's plan actually had had some merit to it. If the tips had been sharper, which would be pretty easy to accomplish, they really _could_ have done some damage to someone. Not a walker, unless it was a lucky shot, but definitely a man. Those things could definitely pierce a soft spot like a throat without breaking. And he certainly wouldn't want one of those fuckers anywhere near his crotch, either. When she'd told him the story, he'd been imagining something more fragile, something more like the pins he'd ultimately found. He'd never considered them being that robust. Once again, he'd been underestimating her. He hadn't been meaning to, had actually felt like he'd been actively appreciating her at the time, but he hadn't given her mind enough credit. He'd assumed that she hadn't realized just how strong such a weapon would really need to be, when, in fact, _he_ hadn't realized just how strong of a weapon she'd really been referring to.

"Sorry I doubted you, girl," he said with a soft chuckle. "You really _coulda_ fucked someone up with these things. And, you're absolutely right, no one woulda ever seen it comin'. They'da been too busy starin' at you. Lookin' all wide-eyed and slack-jawed and shit. Droolin' all over the beautiful girl with her hair done up so pretty. You'da had them all hypnotized and they never woulda dreamed that that cute little kitten had claws. You'da fooled the _fuck_ outta 'em, girl."

"Fooled the fuck outta _me_ ," he added with a laugh. "Fooled the fuck outta me for so damn long. So damn long when I didn't see you for what you really are. Didn't see you for so long, girl, but I see you now. My dumb ass finally caught the fuck on. Hope you know that. Hope you know I see you now and you ain't foolin' me no more. Can't hide how special you are, sweetheart, not from old Daryl Dixon. Not anymore."

He ran a light touch over the hairpins one last time with a smile and then carefully placed them on top of her diary. They'd only be resting there temporarily as he'd long since come to the conclusion that he'd be keeping them. Just like the nurses' uniform, those chopsticks felt like something that bound them together. Like something that they shared. They'd talked about those things, they'd enacted a drama over those things, he'd actually _touched_ her over those things. They were theirs.

They were theirs and they'd soon take their rightful place as part of his dresser shrine.

Finding the diary and the chopsticks had been worth every Beth point he'd used and more, worth all twenty-four of those stitches that still throbbed in the back of his hand, and that was a good thing because there really wasn't anything else left. Just the lip balm, the little flashlight, the coin purse, and that baffling jar of acorns. He picked up each item one-by-one, just to touch them. Just to connect with the objects. When he got to the tin of lip balm, he had to fight the urge to open in. To run his finger through the slick substance that she'd once run her finger through and smear it on his own lips just as she'd once done to hers. Like some bizarre sort of kiss. (Actually had the fleeting impulse to fucking _lick_ the stuff.) He wanted to do that, but it felt too creepy, too desperate, so he resisted the temptation and set the tin to the side.

He picked up the last item in the drawer, her vintage coin purse and laid it in his carefully in his palm. Having touched it, he'd realized just how fragile it was, just how old, and he ran his finger over the small beads with the faintest of pressure. It had a basic, but deeply pleasing, texture and he savored the feel of it on his skin. When he got to the bottom corner of the dainty pocket, he hit a small ridge and he realized that there was something inside. The purse appeared flat and had weighed almost nothing when he'd picked it up, so he'd assumed that it had been empty. Just a decorative piece. Though his injury limited his dexterity, he opened up the purse's silver clasp as gingerly as he could and reached inside with eager fingers to discover the mystery object.

It was a ring.

It was a wooden ring. A simple band of carved walnut. It was beautifully engraved with a dainty vine of wildflowers weaving around it in an almost full circle, stopping only to accommodate the cursive capital B that was carved into its center. Like all of the other jewellery he'd found in her room, he could easily see her wearing it. Easily and very happily see her wearing it. He could picture that lovely little piece of nature decorating her lovely little finger. Could picture how gorgeous that dark walnut would look contrasted against her pale, glowing skin. Could picture her smiling when she put it on in the morning and when she gazed at it during the day.

Smiling because it was beautiful and it was special and it was marked with a B just for her.

Before his ill-fated deer hunt, before his long overdue epiphany in the woods, Daryl had been terrified that entering Beth's room would break the spell he was under. Terrified that the stories he'd been telling himself about her things, the stories that made him feel so connected to her, would stop coming to him. That hadn't happened, of course. Since stepping into that space, he'd continued spinning tale after tale. Tales about every item he'd uncovered in every precious Beth unit. Tales about the dog tags that hung around his next. Tales about the _Summer 2010_ sandals. Tales about her poems and her quotes. He'd told himself stories about everything and they'd all come as easily, and as vividly, as they always had.

As he stared at that ring, though, the stories refused to flow. The plot lines would start and stop haltingly. Jerkingly. He'd get fragments of ideas, flashes of imagery, but his mind couldn't seize hold of any of them. _Wouldn't_ seize hold of any of them. He was rejecting every scenario before it even had a chance to play out: reading the first two words of the novel and then throwing the entire manuscript into the fire. They all felt wrong. And not just wrong as in _incorrect_ , but wrong as in _wrong_. Wrong as in not _right_. Not how it was. Not how it should have been.

Not how it was meant to be.

And that was it. He realized that _that_ was why none of his stories were working. He didn't _want_ her to have gotten the ring at some random point in her past. Didn't _want_ to envision it as something she'd bought for herself or that someone else had given her. He wanted to envision it as something that _he_ had given her. _He_ wanted to be a part of the story. _He_ wanted to have given her that ring.

No, he wanted to have _made_ her that ring.

He thought of Tommy and the porch swing, thought of that hand-crafted symbol of his love, thought of Millie's tears and Tommy's unmistakable pride, and he absolutely ached with his desire to have made Beth that ring. Ached to have made something beautiful for someone beautiful. And he honestly thought he could have done it, too. He'd never attempted anything decorative like that, and had only rarely done anything so detailed, but he'd always been good with his hands. He'd always been good at making things. And working with a piece of wood and a sharp knife, or maybe even a razor blade, that would have been right up his alley. He didn't think he could have done it for anyone but her, didn't think he could have brought that level of craftsmanship or creativity to bear for anyone else, but he was fairly confident that, for Beth, it wouldn't have been a problem at all.

It would have been a pleasure.

It would have been such a pleasure to lose himself in that work. To focus all his attentions on getting the details just right, just perfect, just as good as she deserved. He'd always enjoyed abandoning himself to a task and he would have loved abandoning himself to that one. Knowing that he was doing something that would make her happy, that would make her smile, that would make her know how much he cared.

Something that would show her that his fists were open and that his hands could be delicate.

Something that would show her that he could do delicate work with his delicate hands and that he could be so delicate with her, too.

He could be so fucking delicate with her, too.

Having identified the obstacle to his storytelling, Daryl removed the impediment and started to easily craft a tale where he was the star. Well, where _Beth_ was the star, because Beth was _always_ the star, but where he was there at the center of the action, too: making that ring and making her smile. Before he knew what he was doing, he was telling the tale out loud. Telling it to Beth. Telling it like it was true.

"Remember when I gave you this?," he asked her dreamily. "Remember that day? _Christ_ , you were so fuckin' beautiful. Was winter and you were wearin' that blue sweater. You know, that really soft one that made your eyes look so fuckin' magical? Even more magical than usual."

"The one you thought was too tight, but I definitely didn't," he said with a laugh. There'd been no such sweater, of course. Like everything in the tale to come, it was only a fantasy.

"You were so fuckin' beautiful that day," he continued. "Surprised, too. I totally shocked you with this one. Didn't see it comin' at all, even though I worked on it for weeks. Made more than a dozen of 'em 'til I finally got it right. 'Til it was good enough for you. All that time and you had no idea what I was doin'. Would go out huntin' for hours and come back with a couple squirrels and you'd just smile like that was perfectly normal. Like it weren't weird that I'd be gone all day and come back with shit. Didn't know I was workin' on this while I was out there. Told me later you just thought I wanted some time to myself. Thought I was just bein' me and wantin' my space and you never said nothin' 'bout it 'cause you didn't want me to feel self-conscious."

"You were totally fuckin' wrong, of course," he told her with a grin. "Never wanted no space from you. Were totally wrong, but you were right, too. Right to think that'd be the kind of thing I'd do. And right to think that I wouldn'ta wanted anyone to call me on it. You were right, even though you were wrong."

"Have an annoyin' habit of doin' that," he laughed softly. "Always bein' right, even when you're wrong. One of the reasons I can't help but fuckin' love you."

"So you were too busy bein' sweet to be suspicious," he said, returning to the narrative. "Never suspected I was up to nothin' but broodin' and when I told you the truth you were so surprised. Sat you down and told you that I'd made you somethin', that I'd _been_ makin' you somethin', and that I wanted to give it to you. And you just got the cutest fuckin' look on your face, girl. Look of total disbelief. Which was sweet 'cause you look pretty good when you're dumbfounded, you know? And you were _definitely_ dumbfounded that day. Totally dumbfounded that old Mr. Dixon had done somethin' like that."

"Told you to give me your hand and I put it in your palm," he continued, completely lost in the dream. "Was so fuckin' nervous my hand was shakin' and I dropped damn thing like it was on fire. Could barely even look you in the eye to watch your reaction. But I was so glad I did, girl. 'Cause your reaction was priceless. Don't think I'd ever seen you smile like that. Seen thousands of your smiles and I'd never seen one quite like that."

"You'd been complain' for months that you were missin' flowers," he went on. "Well, not _complain'_. You never really complained 'bout nothin'. But you missed 'em. I know you liked the Fall and the Winter just fine. Saw the beauty in it all. But you loved your flowers most and you were missin' 'em. So that's why I carved those there. So you'd always have flowers with you. So no matter where you were or what time of year it was you could always see somethin' bloomin'. That's why I'd done it and that was the first thing you said when you saw 'em. You were smilin' at me like I made a fuckin' rose bloom in January and said that you'd always have flowers now. You said they were so beautiful and that it was like holdin' a piece of Spring. And I thought that lookin' at you was like _lookin'_ at a piece Spring, but I didn't say it. Shoulda said it, though. Shoulda said it 'cause you woulda blushed. You woulda blushed and, _Christ_ , girl, if there's anything in this world better than you smilin', it's you blushin'."

"You'd only really noticed the flowers, though, and it weren't 'til you put it on your finger that you spotted the rest," he continued, starting to take his tale in yet another new direction. He'd already broken form by writing himself into the story behind one of her objects and he was about to take things even further by altering the object itself. Changing one of the real-life details of the item he held in his hand to suit the fictional narrative that had completely captured his soul.

"When you saw the letters," he said, eyes closed and picturing the imagined event, "you were so confused. Had to watch that smile of yours disappear, which fuckin' sucked, but it weren't that bad 'cause confusion's a pretty good look on you, too. Your face gets all scrunched up and you cock your head to the side a little. You look so fuckin' sweet, girl. Like a bunny seein' a blue carrot. Like the cutest little thing in the world seein' somethin' it just don't understand. And you had that baffled bunny look, sweetheart. Had baffled bunny written all over you. And you looked at me with your little baffled bunny face and asked me 'bout those letters. Real quiet. Like you were nervous or somethin'. You asked me why it said B.D. Asked me what that stood for."

"And I told you it stood for Beth Dixon," he said, his voice breaking as he uttered the name he wished had been hers. A name he'd never said out loud before. He wasn't sure when it had begun, but he realized that he was crying. Not terribly or profusely, just a slow, steady stream of tears leaking down his cheeks. He didn't care. Didn't make any effort to stop them. He just continued on with his story, on with his dream. "I had no fuckin' idea how to propose to you, girl. Had no idea how to do it right. Knew you deserved so much better than me. Knew you deserved so much better, but you always thought I was better than I was. Always believed I could be even better than that, too. Always acted like I was really somethin'. Like I could be someone. And I thought maybe you'd think I could be someone for you. Thought maybe you'd believe it enough to give me a chance. Though that, even if I didn't deserve you then, you might let me spend the rest of my life tryin' to. And I wanted that so fuckin' much, you know? Wanted to spend the rest of my life tryin' to deserve you, sweetheart. _Christ_ , I wanted to deserve you."

"Didn't know how to tell you that shit, though," he continued, unable to paint a more capable portrait of himself even in his own fantasy. "Didn't know how to explain any of that to you. Didn't know how to make you understand how much I fuckin' loved you. How much I wanted to be with you. How much I wanted to make you happy. How happy _you_ fuckin' made _me_. Had no idea how to tell you how _happy_ you fuckin' made me, girl. So I just told you that the B.D. stood for Beth Dixon. Told you I was hopin' you'd think 'bout changin' your name. Think 'bout bein' my wife. Said that I wanted to be your husband and that I try to be the best man for you that I could."

"And you didn't say nothin'," he went on. "Didn't say nothin' for a few seconds and I was so fuckin' scared. So scared I'd fucked up. But you told me later you were just in shock. Just overwhelmed. And I can't blame you on that one, 'cause I was pretty fuckin' overwhelmed myself. Was the most important moment of my life. You didn't say nothin' for a few seconds, but I got my answer before you said a word. Pretty soon that little baffled bunny hopped away and beautiful beamin' Beth came back. And, _fuck_ , I thought the smile I got when I gave you the ring was good, girl, but the smile you gave me then was the _best_. Best smile I've seen in my whole fuckin' life. Best smile _anybody's_ ever seen. That was some historic shit, sweetheart. The stuff of legends and I was there to see it."

He would have normally felt pathetic and arrogant for imagining her being so happy to marry him. To be vocalizing what he considered to be a delusionally flattering tale. He was so absorbed in the dream though, that he couldn't care. Just like the tears still streaming down his face, his low self-esteem was being temporarily ignored in favor of his fantasy.

"When you finally said _yes_ I 'bout died, though," he said, because he knew it would have been true. "Knew you weren't gonna be sayin' _no_ after givin' me a smile like that, but it felt so fuckin' good to actually hear that word. Actually hear you say _yes_. Hear you say you wanted to be Mrs. Dixon. Remember when you said that? When you actually said the name? Made my heart fuckin' stop. Made my heart fuckin' stop to hear you call yourself that. Thought _Mr. Dixon_ was hot, girl. Thought that was the hottest thing I could ever fuckin' hear. Hottest thing that could ever come out of that pretty little mouth of yours. But you fuckin' destroyed me with that _Mrs. Dixon_ shit. With that sweet _Mrs. Dixon_ in your sweet little voice. If you weren't such a good girl, I'da sworn you were evil. Sworn you were sent straight from the Devil himself. Temptin' me with all kindsa sin."

"Couldn't risk you sayin' that again," he smirked, fully imagining the predicament. "Couldn't risk you boilin' my fuckin' brain with that shit. Dyin' before I even had a chance to make you mine. So I just grabbed you and kissed the hell outta you. Shut that pretty little mouth up and kissed the fuck outta you. Kissed my little Mrs. Dixon 'til she couldn't think straight. Kissed her 'til _Mr. Dixon_ couldn't think that straight, neither."

"Which I guess ain't sayin' much as far as Mr. Dixon's concerned," he added with a laugh. " _Always_ stopped thinking straight when I touched you. Stopped thinkin' straight just _lookin'_ at you."

And he'd stopped thinking straight telling that tale, too. Sitting there, reminiscing with a phantom Beth about their phantom engagement, he wasn't thinking straight at all. He was completely lost to the story. A story that felt so real. A story that felt so much like a memory. He knew it wasn't, of course. He hadn't truly gone insane. He knew it hadn't happened. He was holding irrefutable _evidence_ that it hadn't happened. He could see that the ring in his hand had no D to accompany the B. That there had been no Beth Dixon. He could see that as clear as day. But what he _saw_ and what he _knew_ couldn't hold a candle to what he _felt_ in that moment.

And it all felt so fucking real.

It felt so fucking real because that's what _should_ have happened. That's how it was supposed to have been. He was supposed to have made her a ring like that. He was supposed to have asked her to marry him. He was supposed to have kissed her senseless. He was supposed to have made her his wife. He was supposed to have loved and protected his little Mrs. Dixon until the day he died. Loved her with his delicate hands and protected her with the closed fists that she alone could open.

That's how it was meant to be.

And, while he was devastated that that had never happened, devastated in a way that he knew he'd never recover from, that night he just felt lucky to have heard the tale. To have had a chance to watch it unfold in his mind and see how beautiful it could have been. _Should_ have been. He just felt happy that he could hold that story in his heart. That he could revisit it again and again. Because he absolutely would. He knew that he'd revisit that story again and again. He knew that he'd read that fairy tale every night before he went to sleep, staring at the silhouette of a nurse's uniform darkening his bedroom window, and he knew it wouldn't end with him kissing her senseless. The name _Mrs. Dixon_ wouldn't only be uttered once. Wouldn't only be spoken in her voice. It would be said over and over and over again. Said in joy and in awe and in praise and in undying gratitude. And it would spin its web of innocent evil, cast its spell of sweet sin, and the fairy tale would have an even happier ending than the chastely abridged version he'd just recounted.

He was freer in his speech than he'd ever been, but there was still a limit to what he could say out loud. A hard limit on what he could vocalize period, let alone what he could say in the sanctity of her room. In the privacy of his mind, though, in the shadows of his room at night - in those shadows where _they_ lived - there would be no limit. No limit on how many times he could hear _Mrs. Dixon_ and no limit on what he could allow it to do to him. No limit on what he could allow it to make _him_ do to _her_. Make him do for her. With her. There would be no limit at all.

Yes, that fairy tale was going to have a _very_ happy ending.

His spirit might have been elated, but his body was wrecked. The adrenaline that had gotten him through the worst of his injury had long since faded and his wound was pulsing with pain. A fierce throb that set his skin on fire and radiated up his arm with every beat of his heart. And he was exhausted. He was sitting in almost total darkness now, the sun having set at least an hour ago, and his eyes were staying shut for longer and longer with each passing blink. It wasn't actually that late, but he felt drained. He realized he was fading fast, and with the promise of a dream Mrs. Dixon waiting for him down the hall, he knew it was time to call it a night. He started to pack up the drawer and return it to the nightstand, leaving out the chopsticks and the ring which, he decided, also belonged on his dresser. Slowed by his injury and his lethargy, the task took a little longer than it should have and, as he went through the motions, he resumed the conversation.

"Alright, girl," he said, carefully picking up Millie's funeral program. "Storytime's over. Mr. Dixon's fuckin' beat. Gotta take my broke ass to bed. And I know I ain't said nothin' 'bout it, been all stoic and manly and shit, but I _do_ have a busted hand, sweetheart. Got stitches and everythin'. I'm a wounded man, girl, might be a good idea if a nurse came by to check on me durin' the night. Might need some medical attention or somethin'. Might need someone to kiss it and make it better."

"Just somethin' to think 'bout," he laughed, sliding the re-filled drawer back into place. "You know, just in case you happen to know a nurse lookin' for some work. And I ain't picky, neither. Could be anyone. Could be anyone at all, as long as it's you. Only got one requirement. I'm a simple man."

Having restored her room to its original condition, he took a moment to stretch and, rather than relieving him, it just made his body feel heavy. He sluggishly shuffled towards her door and, in what had become part of his nightly routine, he spoke to her in parting when he reached the doorway.

"Gonna keep these safe for you," he said, referencing the chopsticks and ring clutched in his good hand. "Gonna put 'em with all the others. I know you know how much I like havin' your stuff with me, girl, so thanks for lettin' me do that. Thanks for lettin' me look after 'em...I love you, sweetheart, and I'll see you tomorrow."

"Unless you come see me tonight," he couldn't help but add with a grin as he walked into the hall. "That would work, too."

* * *

 _Okay, so I have this vague (and unsettling) feeling that I might have read another story where Daryl made Beth a wooden engagement ring. It might just be that it's an idea I've had before, but I'm kinda worried that I accidentally stole it from someone. So, if I have and you know what story it was, will you let me know? I'll update this note to credit the author..._

 _As for the stuff at the beginning, I have to admit that I'm like (my) Daryl and actually really dislike most poetry. I have no idea why I decided to put that poem in there and why I meditated on it for so long. I'm sorry if you found it annoying because, honestly, I probably would have found it annoying, too. The story just went there, though, and I didn't have the strength to fight it. :)_

 _(And in case any of you are Neruda fans and thought I totally butchered the analysis...I agree with you! I wasn't really trying to critique the poem on its own merits. Probably couldn't have even if I'd wanted to, but - in my defense - that wasn't my intention. I was just imagining how Daryl might see it.)_

 _Alright, that's enough! Thanks again for reading! I hope to be seeing some of you again at Chapter 7. (I'm counting on you my delightful double dozen! Hang in there with me!) Have a wonderful week everyone and a happy TWD premiere! :)_


	7. Chapter 7

_Hello again, dear readers and lovely people! As usual, I want to thank you all so much for your support last chapter. Your comments mean SO MUCH to me and I'm sorry that I'm so terrible about responding to them. It's part of a whole spectrum of things that I struggle with - what could only very charitably be called quirks - but please know that your kind words mean the fucking world to me. I'm just a deeply flawed person that can't get their shit together enough to tell you that._

 _I've written an insanely long endnote to this piece, so I'll try to save your patience for that. Until then, I hope you enjoy the next chapter in our little saga..._

* * *

It was infected.

It had only been a few days and it hadn't hit his whole body yet, but there was no denying that his hand was infected. The skin around his sutures had turned scarlet and swollen and the simple act of making a fist was becoming a rapidly increasing struggle. Not just a struggle to fight through the pain, though the piercing sting of the movement was definitely a limiting factor, but a true mechanical struggle as his deep tissue and joints were growing stiffened and inflamed. He'd tried to keep it clean, but had used up almost all of the antiseptic when he'd first stitched the gash, and had been relying on the last of his standard soap to serve as disinfectant. He'd been hopeful that it would be good enough - he'd certainly been less responsible with wound care in the past - but was unsurprised that it hadn't been. The knife he'd sliced himself with had probably been covered in all manner of microscopic filth, tiny particles of squirrel guts and walker brains, and he could have easily gotten something lodged in the cut, too. He imagined he might have a sliver of wood from the spike he'd been sharpening buried somewhere in all that angry flesh.

Something festering deep inside.

Regardless of the underlying source, the implication of the situation was as undeniable as the infection itself. He'd have to find antibiotics. He'd have to leave the security of the Greene home and its surrounding woods - his home, his woods - and head into town. And he'd have to do it soon. He'd have to do it before the fever set in and he got too sick to mount the effort. And, far more pressingly, he'd have to do it while he still had enough grip to control his bike. He'd foreseen how his injury would hamper him with the crossbow, but days had gone by before he'd considered how it would effect him on his motorcycle. And he'd felt a rush of true fear when he finally did. Felt a wave of almost paralyzing fear when he'd realized that the immobility of his hand was going to make it incredibly hard, and incredibly painful, to control the bike. It had been a terrifying thought because he had no other way to attempt the mission. He didn't have a car and the expedition would be practically impossible on foot. He was going to be searching for an incredibly scarce commodity and he'd have to cover a lot of ground before he found it. He'd have to cover a lot of ground before the search could even _begin_ : the Greenes were miles from their nearest neighbor and many of their neighbors could say the same thing.

If he couldn't ride his bike, he'd be fucked.

Which is why he'd taken off for Senoia as soon as he'd realized how his injury would quickly rob him of his only means of transportation. It had been mid-afternoon and, though he'd known he was getting worse by that point, he'd previously resolved to postpone the trip until the next day: to start out fresh in the morning with the maximum amount of light. He'd thrown that plan immediately out the window, though, when he'd realized that he might wake up unable to flex his hand. That he might wake up lacking the strength or dexterity to work the throttles on his bike. In a panicked rush, he'd tossed some essentials into his bag - including the can of fruit cocktail which he'd felt compelled to take with him for some reason - and headed straight out the door.

He'd avoided the historic downtown and its quaint family pharmacy entirely, assuming that everything commercial had probably been well-looted already. That'd been his experience pretty much everywhere and he had no reason to believe Senoia would be any different. His only hope was going to be someplace residential. He wasn't going to find medicine in a drugstore, he was going to find it in someone's bathroom. And, though he had years of practice at clearing abandoned houses, he'd rarely done it alone and he really hadn't been looking forward to the experience.

He'd been dreading it.

Well and truly dreading it. He was far from his fighting best, but it wasn't the near certainty of encountering trapped walkers that concerned him. He was still pretty confident that he could handle the undead. It was the living that he was worried about. It was the other survivors that terrified him. The other survivors who he knew were out there. Somewhere. The Greenes had had a muddy squatter, Daryl had been a muddy squatter, the world was full of muddy squatters and they could be squatting anywhere. Anyone could be fucking anywhere. And they could react in any possible way if stumbled upon. React in any possible way - any entirely unpredictable and incredibly dangerous way - if discovered.

His injury might have made him realize the perils of being alone, but accidentally intruding on a group of strangers was _not_ the way he wanted to solve that problem.

Other than paying close attention to his surroundings and looking out for any signs of habitation, though, there really hadn't been anything he could do to eliminate that risk, so he'd just had to face it. Senoia had once been a sweet little town, but - like all towns - it had its less desirable parts and he'd started his search there. (He didn't have any prior knowledge to work with, no understanding of the place that told him exactly where to go or which streets to take. Like some strange homing pigeon, he'd just always had an inner radar for locating the lower-side of town.) He figured that anyone trying to set up home those days would either stay out of Senoia entirely, which would definitely be the smartest option, or choose a higher quality place where they'd at least be living somewhere nice. If someone was willing to take the risk of living in a once-populated area, he'd reasoned, they'd probably settle down in the beautiful old Craftsman not the ugly aluminum doublewide. It definitely wasn't bulletproof logic, especially considering the fact that the seedy side of Senoia was still pretty decent (better than any place he'd ever lived), but it had been the best he could come up with in terms of an avoidance strategy.

Riding the bike had been as difficult as he'd imagined and he'd already been tired and in pain by the time he'd begun to sweep the first house. He hadn't found any medicine inside, but he hadn't found any walkers or any squatters, either, and he'd considered that a good enough start. And it had ended up being pretty indicative of the rest of the block. He'd gone through eight more houses and had only encountered three walkers, all of which he'd dispatched with quite easily, and seen no signs of the living. Seen no signs of any antibiotics, either. Thanks to Merle's sexual recklessness and the outbreak at the prison, he was confident that he'd recognize the names of any viable prescription and none of the bottles he'd discovered had contained what he needed. It hadn't been a total loss, though. He'd found a couple pints of whiskey and a fifth of gin, which he'd been more than happy to throw into his bag, some extra bandages and a partial tube of Neosporin. He was pretty sure that the Neosporin wouldn't do him much good at this point, at least not on its own, but he figured it couldn't hurt either and was grateful for the find.

By the time he hit his tenth house, the sun was beginning to set and he was starting to get deeply worried. Worried because he really didn't want to be doing this in the dark and worried because he couldn't imagine not having to. He'd only searched one street so far and, for all he knew, there wasn't a single tablet of amoxicillin left in all of fucking Georgia. At best, he had a lot of houses left to explore before he found what he was looking for and he couldn't go home until he found it. He couldn't go home and start the search again in the morning, couldn't wait for fresh light, because he might not be able to _do it_ in the morning. Because he _wouldn't_ be able to do it in the morning. He knew that now. It wasn't a possibility, it was a certainty. The way his hand laid heavy and throbbing at his side, he knew his grip would be gone in twelve hours. His grip would be gone, he wouldn't be able to ride, and he'd be stuck on the farm.

Dying.

Dying and wondering if it was too late to try to cut off his own hand. Too late to follow in Merle's footsteps one last time.

And he wasn't going out like that - no way in hell - so there was nothing to do but push on. Nothing to do but keep looking. The pain in his hand was so intense that he'd kept his crossbow on his back, unable to properly wield the heavy weapon, and was relying on his knife as his sole means of defense. Standing on the porch, he banged on the door with the butt of the blade to rouse the attention of any walker inside and waited a few moments. In the silence, he reached for the dog tags that hung around his neck and brought them to his lips: kissing them quickly for good luck. It was a ritual he'd never performed before this trip, but something he'd done instinctively at the first house he'd raided and had repeated at every stop since. He wasn't sure why he did it. Maybe it was because it was just too painful to press his palm to his chest, to touch her photo in his breast pocket, as he normally would have done and manipulating the necklace had simply felt more manageable. Maybe it was because he was on a mission, a true fucking _mission_ , and there was something about the symbolism of that that called to him. Something that made him want to connect to her as a soldier, as a fighter, as a survivor. Like so many things about his relationship to Beth and her objects, he didn't understand it, but he went with it all the same. Even if it was only for an instant - only for that brief second when that cool metal touched his dry skin - the action comforted him and he needed all the comfort he could get.

After waiting a sufficient period of time, and hearing no movement from inside the building, he went ahead a kicked the door in. It was a prefabricated home made of lower quality materials and, to his tiring body's relief, the frame cracked on the first blow and the entry was easy. It was a small house - just two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom, and a open living room-kitchen - and he began to search the place quickly. As he'd come to expect, there was nothing of value in the medicine cabinet. Plenty of makeup and skincare products, but no actual medicine. He dutifully searched the nightstands in both rooms, which had clearly belonged to a mother and her teenage daughter, but didn't find anything there, either. He hadn't really thought that he would, but he wasn't about to take any chances. As he was leaving the girl's room, he noticed a track uniform balled up on the floor and realized that she'd gone to the same high school as Beth. Every teenager in Senoia probably had, he imagined, but it still struck him as meaningful somehow. He found himself hoping that the girl had survived, that she and her mother were out there thriving somewhere, and was surprised by the depth and sincerity of that desire. In that moment, gazing at that long forgotten uniform, standing in their abandoned home, he truly cared about those strangers' well-being. It really felt like it mattered whether or not they were alright. It really felt like it mattered whether they were alive and safe and together.

 _It does matter._

He left the bedroom and headed towards the kitchen, his last hope for the house. He was walking past the refrigerator to get to the cabinets nearest the sink, which he'd learned over the years was where a lot of people kept their daily medicine, when something in his peripheral vision caught his eye. A flash of gold. He took a step back and turned to face the fridge, which was covered in a wallpaper of photos and coupons and takeout menus: plastered with layer after layer of relics from a by-gone world held precariously in place by dozens of overburdened magnets. It was a crazy quilt of pure clutter, but he didn't see any of that. He didn't see the stained recipe for banana nut bread or the track team practice schedule. He didn't see the dentist appointment reminder card or the invitation to Caley Michael's Sweet Sixteen party. He only saw one thing. He only saw that flash of gold.

He only saw Beth.

There in the midst of all that chaos, in the middle of that mad jumble of family ephemera, was a photo of Beth. It must have been taken just a few months before the turn because she looked almost exactly as she had when he'd first met her on the farm: definitely still a teenager in the truest sense, but very much a Beth he knew. A Beth he really recognized. She was with a dark-haired girl with glasses, a girl who was in most of the photos on the refrigerator and had clearly been the daughter of the home, and they were both laughing. They had their arms slung around each other's shoulders and their heads thrown back in almost identical poses as they shared an obviously joyful moment. He was so caught up in the sight of Beth, so taken aback by her sudden presence in that kitchen, that it took him a moment to realize that the girl she was with was the same girl from the photostrip on her dresser. Her glasses were different than the cat-eyes that she'd worn that day and the new frames had altered her appearance, but it was definitely her. That was Beth's friend from the photobooth.

That was Beth's friend's house.

He really couldn't believe he was standing in Beth's friend's house. A house that Beth herself had probably stood in many times. She might have had sleepovers in the bedroom he was just in. Done homework at that kitchen table. Grabbed an after-school snack from that very refrigerator. And that just seemed crazy to him. Sure, Beth had probably had a lot of friends - and Senoia was a pretty small town - but it still seemed incredible that he would have stumbled upon one of their houses on the very first block he raided. It just seemed impossible that he could be standing there, hand throbbing and desperate for a miracle, staring at her beautiful, laughing face.

How could he _not_ take that as a sign?

How could he _not_ take that as a sign that she was with him?

He reached up and took the photo off of the refrigerator, carefully excavating it from the surrounding materials and trying his best to keep the whole mess from sliding onto the floor. There were plenty of other pictures of the friend if someone ever came looking for a memento of her, he figured. No one else needed the one with Beth more than him. And he really needed it. Not just in general, but especially that day. He need it so badly and he could have easily lost himself in that photo, lost himself in the magic of finding it, in the sense of connection that it gave him, and just stood in that kitchen until the sun went down. He knew he could have done that, knew he halfway _wanted_ to do that, but he also knew it was the last thing in the world he could afford to do. He didn't have any time to waste. He didn't have any time to contemplate. Any time to get dreamy or meditative. He had to focus and he had to keep moving.

So, with one last glance, he slipped the photo into his pocket and continued on his search.

Reverting back to his original path, he headed towards the sink and when he opened the adjacent cabinet he took in a sharp audible breath. A true gasp. Because there amongst the juice glasses and the vitamins was an almost full orange prescription bottle with the word _Clindamycin_ stamped in big, black letters on the label. He didn't recognize that particular name, but he knew that suffix. _Mycin_. He knew that drugs ending _-mycin_ were antibiotics. And when he saw the rest of the label, when he saw who the drugs had been for, he burst out laughing. He laughed harder and louder than he had in ages. Laughed from the very depths of his soul. Laughed because he was so relieved to have found what he was looking for. Laughed because he was so grateful to have be given that second chance. Laughed because he knew _who_ had given him that second chance. Laughed because he knew _exactly_ where he was, who that girl was, and because there wasn't a doubt in his _fucking_ mind that Beth was indeed with him.

STOPSIGN ROSENBERG  
CLINDAMYCIN, 150mg Caps  
GIVE ONE CAPSULE TWICE DAILY, WITH FOOD

Stopsign Rosenberg. A dog. Beth's best friend's dog.

That wasn't just Beth's friend's house. That was Beth _best_ friend's house. And her best friend's dog was going to save his life.

Beth telling him about Stopsign had been one of the very last conversations they'd ever had and it was a vivid and deeply treasured memory. The prospect of seeing that dog at the funeral home had gotten her excited and she'd started talking animatedly and at length about what wonderful and intelligent animals they were. As both the daughter of veterinarian and a girl from a rural town, she'd had a seemingly inexhaustible amount of dogs stories and facts at her disposal - trivia from books and anecdotes from her own life - and she'd eagerly shared them all. And he'd listened just as eagerly. In part because he'd been genuinely interested in the topic, but mostly because he'd simply been interested in _her_. Interested in whatever she had to say, especially when she was saying it with such enthusiasm. With such delight.

And she had been truly delighted. Truly delighted to talk about dogs. And the dog that had made her smile the most, the dog whose antics she'd been the most thrilled to recount, had been Stopsign. She'd been thoroughly convinced that he'd been the greatest dog ever and had admitted, with an absolutely adorable amount of self-admonishment, that she'd sometimes been jealous that he'd belonged to her friend and not to her. It had been the only time she hadn't looked happy that whole conversation - because she'd been disappointed in herself for her perceived selfishness - and that had only made him love her more. Marvel at her more. Marvel at the goodness of someone who would feel so guilty about occasionally coveting their friend's dog that it would still bother them years after the end of the world.

(Later that night she'd ask him what changed his mind about good people. It was shit like _that_ that changed his mind.)

As Beth had told it, Stopsign had been given to her friend, Molly, when she was in kindergarten to help ease her through her parents divorce. Her mother had wanted her to have something positive in her life during the rough transition - a happy addition to balance out the sad subtraction - and had thought a puppy would be an excellent choice. Molly had wanted one for years, so she'd gotten her the little mutt at the pound and, in an act she'd later regretted, she'd let Molly name him. And Molly had named him Stopsign. For reasons she'd refused to share at the time, and then later completely forgot, she'd named him Stopsign. (Adamantly one word, not two.) And despite the absurdity of the name, Beth had insisted that it had been the perfect moniker for the animal. Stopsign had been a _Stopsign_. Not a _Jack_ or a _Spot_ or a _Charlie_. He'd been a _Stopsign_ , through and through.

Among his many endearing qualities, Stopsign had had a touch of the wanderlust and had made a lifelong habit of escaping the yard: going on endless unsanctioned adventures all across Senoia and even points beyond. The result had been countless instances that were either incredibly funny or deeply embarrassing, depending on your perspective, of one of the Rosenbergs roaming the streets shouting _Stopsign!_ at the top of their lungs to the complete bewilderment of those around them. Beth had been enlisted in many of those search parties, too, and Daryl remembered laughing as she'd recreated her own parts of the stories. Remembered laughing at the picture she'd painted. Laughing at the image of this achingly wholesome-looking girl behaving in a totally deranged way: her sweet face full of concern and confusion as she cried out desperately for a road marker.

And, the way he was feeling now, he wanted to cry out, too. Not out of desperation, but out of joy. He wanted to shout _Stopsign!_ to the fucking heavens. He wanted to shout the name of his savior over and over and over again as loud as he possibly could.

 _Stopsign!_

 _Stopsign!_

 _Stopsign!_

Stopsign had made his girl happy for years. Stopsign had given him one of his last memories of her laughter. Stopsign's almost totally untreated infection was going to save his life. Stopsign had proven that, as usual, Beth had been fucking right - Beth had known her fucking shit - because Stopsign was, without a doubt, the greatest dog ever.

Greatest. Dog. Ever.

 _Stopsign!_

 _Stopsign!_

 _Stopsign!_

While his mind skipped like a broken record, repeatedly calling out that one name, his body got to work. The instructions said to take the medication with food and he hadn't eaten since breakfast, so he started rooting around in the cabinets to see if his new favorite family - the lovely lady Rosenbergs - had anything edible left behind. He had some dried rabbit meat in his bag, but he knew he'd barely be able to stomach it and saw no reason to deplete his own resources if he didn't have to. The cupboards were mostly bare, but he found two granola bars and a can of peas and it might as well have been Thanksgiving dinner. The peas seemed like the easiest to digest, so he dug a can-opener out of a nearby drawer and started to basically drink them straight out of the tin. They were already so mushy that he barely needed to chew and he just wanted to get the stuff into his system as quickly as he could. The antibiotics were expired, so they'd likely lost some of their potency, and the prescribed dosage was for a much smaller animal, so he took four capsules out of the bottle instead of the recommended one. He honestly thought he could have taken more, but he figured he should at least ration in the beginning. Give the things a chance to work before he went all in. He downed the pills with the last of the peas and, in an unconscious gesture of respect to the Rosenbergs, walked over and put the empty can in the trash rather than simply leaving it on the counter as he normally would have done.

The fading sun was slung low on the horizon and he wanted to be on the road before it got dark, so it was definitely time to go. As he headed out the door, he stopped and looked at the refrigerator one last time. Stopsign had been a beloved member of the family and pictures of him were scattered throughout the appliance's crazy collage. Scanning the mass, he found an especially adorable one of the young mutt swimming in a pond, holding a stick in his mouth and looking like the happiest creature on Earth. As with the photo of Beth and Molly, he figured that there were enough other pictures of Stopsign that the Rosenbergs would understand losing just one, so he retrieved it from the pile and slipped it into his pocket. His desire to have a memento of the animal was a reflection of the kind of sentimentality that he'd never known until he fell in love with Beth, but that he was becoming increasingly prone to. Increasingly compelled by. And increasingly willing to accept. Stopsign had mattered to Beth, he mattered to Daryl, and he deserved to be remembered for that. So, even though taking the photo was something an older version of himself - the man he'd spent almost his entire life being - never would have done, he didn't even question doing it.

When he got to the door, he stopped and took a parting look at the house: a house that had been a stranger's when he'd entered it, but was now the home of Stopsign and Molly Rosenberg and the scene of so many of Beth's childhood memories. That home had been such an important part Beth's life and had suddenly become such an important part of his life, too. That home had _saved_ his life. That _family_ had saved his life. That family had loved his girl and they'd saved his life and he almost started to thank them for it. Almost started to tell to them thank you for the medicine and for loving Beth Greene. Almost started to tell them that he was Daryl Dixon and that he loved Beth Greene, too. Almost started to tell them about the funeral home and how they'd laughed about Stopsign and that he'd remember their sweet mutt until the day he died. He almost started to tell them, but speaking like that felt too much like talking to the dead. Felt too much like he'd be addressing their spirits and he wanted to believe that their spirits were still in their bodies and that their bodies were still walking around. Walking around and smiling and sharing stories about their beautiful old friend Beth Greene. So he just nodded his head sharply instead, as some kind of farewell salute, and tried his best to close the door he'd broken as he headed back outside.

The walk back down the street felt epic and he almost lost the entire contents of his stomach, including all four of those precious pills, when he finally grasped the handles of his bike. The pain was so intense that it made him nauseous and his mouth pooled with saliva as he fought back his urge to vomit. It'd been less than four hours since he'd last been on the thing and he was shocked at how much he'd deteriorated in that short period of time. After taking a few steadying breaths, he reached around awkwardly into his bag and pulled out one of the bottles of whiskey he'd pilfered earlier. It was probably the worst thing he could do for his nausea, but it was the only thing he could do for his pain, and he gulped down the fiery liquid like it was water. Though he'd once had an incredibly high tolerance, he hadn't had any alcohol in months and was hopeful that its numbing effect would hit him hard and fast. He put the bottle back in the bag, wincing at the task and once again trying to calm his rolling stomach, and returned his gaze back to the handlebars: those simple rods of metal that were both his salvation and his doom.

That was his ticket home, but it was going to be one _shitty_ fucking ride.

His long stretch of (often lamented) sobriety was indeed having its reward, though, and he felt the tension in his body start to loosen as a soothing warmth soon worked its way through his veins. In terms of volume, he'd probably ingested more whiskey than peas and he was definitely beginning to feel it. He flexed his hand experimentally at his side and, while the movement was still agonizing, the pain was a little more distant than it had been before. A little easier to detach from and ignore. And that's really all he needed. He didn't need to feel good, didn't need the pain to disappear entirely. He could fight through pain as long as he wasn't being incapacitated by it. As long as it wasn't making him want to vomit and pass out ten doors down from the Rosenbergs. As long as it wasn't stranding him at the end of Westmoreland Avenue, on the edge of Senoia, miles from home with the night closing in. As long as it wasn't _that_ kind of pain, he was alright and the whiskey was rapidly bringing him that mild deliverance. Kissing the dog tags one last time for good luck, he turned the engine on and, silencing the screams shooting up his arm, he sped off down the road.

When he was well outside of town, but still fairly far from home, he gave into the impulse he'd had since he'd first found the antibiotics. He was drunk on memories and alcohol and the sheer joy of getting a second chance at life and, speeding down rural Route 89, he shouted _Stopsign!_ at the top of his lungs.

He shouted _Stopsign!_ and he laughed and he swore that he could hear Beth laugh, too.

...

It wasn't until he got home and dumped his bag on the kitchen table, truly _dumped_ it because his body was exhausted and he'd just let it fall right off his frame, that he remembered that Herschel hadn't allowed alcohol in the house. He heard the bottles clink together inside the bag as they collided with the table's surface and the sound of it - a sound he could so easily associate with his father's drinking, with Merle's drinking, with his own drinking - brought that completely forgotten fact instantly to mind. Since he'd come to the farm, he'd tried so hard to be respectful of Herschel. Of his whole family. He'd tried so hard to be respectful of their home and of their values. To live a life that would be up to their standards or, at least, be close enough that they would recognize his intent. That they would appreciate the effort. He'd been eating with a fork for fuck's sake and he really didn't want to disappoint them now. He felt bad enough already, he really didn't need to fall into a pit of drunken self-loathing because he felt like he'd betrayed the Greenes.

His hand hurt something evil, though, and he knew that - even if the antibiotics worked fast - he was going to be in pain for awhile. And the booze was all he had for that. It was the only thing he had to get him through the agony to come. The only thing that promised him any relief. And he really fucking wanted it. He could unashamedly admit that to himself. He really fucking wanted to drink his pain away. Unlike so many of the other times in his life when that sentence had been true, though - unlike so many of the times in _Herschel's_ life when that sentence had been true - the pain he want to drink away was a very literal, physical pain. He wasn't trying to drown his sorrows or numb his grief. He was trying to cope with a true medical problem.

A red and swollen and _excruciating_ medical problem.

Surely, Herschel would understand that. Actually, there was no way he _wouldn't_ understand that, he thought. There's no way he wouldn't understand the difference and no way he wouldn't see it as meaningful. Herschel wouldn't want him to suffer just so he could maintain the purity a dry home. He'd been a compassionate man, a _physician_ , and he wouldn't have denied Daryl a painkiller just because it happened to come in a form that could be abused. A form that he happened to have struggled with personally. He wouldn't have done that and Daryl breathed a huge sigh of relief as he began to unpack his bag: very deliberately placing the alcohol in a tight grouping with the antibiotics on the table as if to highlight its medicinal intent.

Staring at the tableau before him, his head swam with the events of the day. Well, the events of the day and the liquor and the pain and the sheer exhaustion. His head swam with it all. It was just too much to take in. By all rights he should still be out on the streets of Senoia, flashlight in his mouth and fear in his heart, searching for medicine. He shouldn't have found what he needed in an afternoon, on the very first street he went to, like he was running a normal errand back in the old world. Like he was just popping down to the drugstore to pick up his prescription. Just swinging by _Rosenberg's Family Pharmacy_ for some antibiotics and a bite to eat.

 _Oh, and can we interest you in a picture of the love of your life, too? Those are on special today in our refrigerated aisle..._

It shouldn't have worked out that way. It was too unbelievable, too stunning of a coincidence. Too stunning of a coincidence to _be_ a coincidence. He knew that already, though. It hadn't been a coincidence at all. It hadn't been a coincidence and, even though it _shouldn't have_ worked out that way, it _had to have_ worked out that way. That was _exactly_ what was supposed to have happened. He was supposed to have found Molly Rosenberg's house, he was supposed to have found that picture of Beth, and he was supposed to have found Stopsign's medicine. He was so fucking sure of that that he almost wondered if he was supposed to have gotten the infection in the first place just so that it could all unfold.

That half-formed thought was supported solely by the booze, though. He had no doubt that his infection had just been bad luck. But finding the medicine hadn't just been _good_ luck. It hadn't just been a rare and wonderful stroke of good fortune. It had been meant to be. Meant to happen.

Meant to happen because _Beth_ had wanted it to happen.

She'd wanted it to happen and somehow she'd made it so. She'd guided him every step of the way that day. She'd been the one that made him finally realize how his hand was going to limit him on the bike. She'd been the one that put the fear of God into him and made him start the search right away. She'd been the one that steered his path through the streets of Senoia. She'd been the inner voice, the intuition, that he'd followed straight to Westmoreland Avenue.

He really and truly believed that.

Believed it with everything that he had.

And that felt so good. Felt so fucking good to know, to really _know_ , that she was with him. That she was _watching out_ for him. He was alone and in pain, but he felt cared for. He felt cared for in a way that he almost never had. Cared for in a way that could only be improved upon by her actual physical presence.

He allowed himself to take a few more swigs of whiskey, placing the bottle carefully back next to his pills, before grabbing the can of fruit cocktail and heading upstairs. At the top of the landing, he paused for a moment, briefly considering - for the very first time since staying in that house - heading straight to bed. He sensed Beth's presence so strongly, he almost felt like he didn't need to stop by her room first.

Almost.

But he did, so after a couple seconds, he took a left and headed towards her door.

"Thanks for savin' my ass today, girl," he said, grinning slightly despite his pain. He leaned against the doorframe, resting all of his weight on the shoulder of his good arm. He wasn't going to go inside tonight - this was just going to be a quick stop - but, even so, he could barely keep himself upright. "Know that was you out there. Told you you can't fool old Daryl Dixon anymore. I know your tricks. Know your magic when I fuckin' see it. And you sure as _shit_ were workin' your fuckin' magic today. Sprinklin' your little pixie dust all over the place. Swear to God I'm gonna find fuckin' glitter when I change my damn bandage."

Just mentioning his bandage made his hand throb and he sighed heavily before continuing, "Wish I could visit with you tonight, but I'm fuckin' beat, sweetheart. Feel like shit. Know you know that. Know you know that and I know Nurse Greene would tell me to get my sick ass to bed. Tell me to go curl up under them covers down there and let those pills you got me work their wonders."

"Almost said _work their magic_ ," he laughed lightly, shaking his head. "But you're the only fuckin' magic here, girl. Pills are just fuckin' science. Ain't nothin' special 'bout that. Glad as _fuck_ to have 'em, don't get me wrong. Glad as fuck you got that shit for me. Just that science ain't got nothin' on you. Science ain't even playin' in the same league as Beth Greene."

"Ain't no one playin' in the same league as Beth Greene," he added with a smile. He pulled together the last of his flagging reserves and lifted his body away from the doorframe, supporting his full weight only through the most focused of efforts. "Alright, I'm headin' off. Can't take it no more. Love you, sweetheart, and I'll see you tomorrow. And thanks again for lookin' out for me. Fuckin' needed that and you came through. You always come through, girl…."

He was slurring his words heavily near the end there and didn't so much finish his thought as simply run out of energy to continue speaking. Turning back down the hall, he stumbled slowly towards his own room: desperate to get to bed but unable to do so at a speed that reflected the urgency. Stepping gratefully through his door, he headed straight to the dresser where he returned the fruit cocktail to its home and, reaching into his pocket, added the photos of Beth and Molly and Stopsign to what would be their new home, too. His shrine back in place, and even more bountiful than before, he was officially done for the day and he collapsed straight onto the bed.

Onto, not into.

He'd planned on taking his boots off and getting under the sheets once he'd gotten a second wind, but that never happened. He slipped almost instantly into unconsciousness where he remained - blissfully numb to the world - for the next twelve and half hours.

...

When he finally woke up, he was neither blissful nor numb. He was in agony. And he was on fire. It was a good thing that he'd never climbed under the covers, because he was burning like a furnace and drenched in sweat. He wanted to get up and strip out of his clothes, get some water down his parched throat and cool himself down, but he couldn't move. He clearly hadn't changed positions even once during the night and he was completely frozen: his muscles locked by a fiendish combination of fever, disuse, and pain. It felt like every cell in his body was directly linked to the cut on his hand. Like he could feel each infected stitch piercing straight through to his toes, his hips, his chest, his fucking _pancreas_. To his fucking _gallbladder_. Piercing straight through to parts he never knew he fucking _had_. Infected stitches were just fucking everywhere.

Everywhere.

And the only thing he could think, once he could finally think at all, was that Beth really did save his life. If he hadn't left yesterday, if Stopsign's antibiotics weren't already waiting for him downstairs, he'd be done for. Absolutely done for. Just going to the kitchen seemed like a massive expedition right now, there was no way he'd be going to Senoia. Even if he had a map right to the Rosenberg's door, he couldn't get there today.

Today would have been too late.

Today _wasn't_ too late, though. Today wasn't too late because Beth had saved him and all he needed to do was pull himself together and get downstairs to take his pills. She'd worked all the magic she could, it was time for him to do his part. He began moving in microscopic increments, trying to ease himself into the struggle, but it was horrible and he knew he just needed to get it over with. Bite the bullet and throw himself out of bed. So, taking several quick pants like he was gearing up to take a punch, he rolled onto his side, sat up, and dropped his feet to the floor in one swift, dizzying movement. Trying to keep his momentum, he started to strip down but soon realized how hard the formerly simple actions were going to be working essentially one-handed. By the time he'd gotten out of his vest and both shirts, he was sweating even more profusely than before and his body was howling in protest. The room air felt good against his hot sticky skin, though, and he savored it as he took a few more deep breaths preparing for the next phase of the battle.

The heavy canvas-like fabric of his cargo pants felt suffocating and he'd never wanted out of a piece of clothing more badly in his life. Even the most gore soaked rag he'd ever worn seemed more inviting than those fucking pants did at that moment. His hopes of freeing himself were cruelly dashed, however, when he remembered that he still had his boots on. He could untie them - they'd last been laced when he'd still had a decent grip and the double-knots were a bit tight, but he'd still be able to get them undone with one hand and enough patience - but he knew he wouldn't be able to _re_ -tie them. Once those knots came undone, they'd probably stay undone for days. He was optimistic about the antibiotics, but given the amount of swelling and pain in his hand, he imagined it would take awhile for him to get his dexterity back. And he couldn't be stuck in that situation. Things were dangerous enough already, he couldn't be stuck facing shit barefoot or wearing his boots like unwieldy slippers. They had to stay laced, which meant the pants had to stay on, and he chanted _fuck_ repeatedly under his breath as he begrudgingly came to accept that broiling fate.

He forced himself to his feet with a groan and tried to ignore the spinning in his head as he started to the long journey to the kitchen. Navigating the stairs felt like an elaborate circus act, which he performed to what would become the day's soundtrack of muttered curses, and he was desperately relieved when he finally reached the bottom. He grabbed the pills off of the table and walked straight to the sink, where he immediately poured himself a glass of water and was, for once, absolutely delighted by the freezing cold temperature of what came out of the Greenes' tap. The icy liquid felt like Heaven to his dry throat and he followed up the first quickly downed glass with another, tossing in the precious medicine on his final greedy gulp. Even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he knew he needed to eat. He wasn't exactly sure _why_ he needed to take the antibiotics with food, but he was going to follow those directions. It felt like Beth had pulled the strings of the entire universe to get him those pills and he wasn't about to jeopardize her hard work because it made him a little queasy. Since every option seemed equally unappetizing, he decided he'd make a meal of the Rosenberg's granola bars. Just the thought of the dry rough stuff made his stomach churn, but they at least reminded him of Beth. It kind of felt like he'd be eating something that she'd prepared for him and the part of him that needed to be nursed and care for that morning really liked that idea.

He made it a true breakfast of champions and chased down the dusty cereal bars with shot after shot of whiskey. It wasn't until he'd completely polished off the last of the previous day's pint that he realized that he should really be rationing the booze. He still had two bottles left, but he also had a lot of healing ahead of him, and he needed to make it last. Fortunately, he already had a decent buzz going by then and rather easily forgave himself for the oversight. He resolved to limit his drinking to half a bottle a day, which would get him through the next four days and - he hoped to hell - the worst of it.

If he wasn't doing better by then, he figured, his problems would probably be too big for the alcohol to touch anyway.

He grabbed the bandages and the Neosporin and forced himself away from the table, heading back over to the kitchen sink to clean his wound. When he removed his old dressing, he didn't find any of the glitter he'd teased Beth about: just a vicious tapestry of black thread and reddened flesh. The only good thing about its appearance was that it immediately relieved him of any concerns he might have had that he was acting like a pussy over his condition. Being this sick would normally make him feel like he was acting weak and unmanly, but the sight before him provided a strong defense against such self-criticism. He wasn't being a little bitch about this. That shit was fucked up and it was no fucking wonder he felt like hell. His hand would have been right at home on a walker and, looking at it, he was actually kind of proud of himself for handling it as well as he was. Until, that is, he started to wash it off under the sink and began to cry. It wasn't a full body sob, wasn't even really _crying_ necessarily, tears just started pouring out of him like the water from the tap. Like that was just his body's natural response. Like it was something it just had to do. It wasn't enough to make him feel like a pussy, but it was definitely enough to rob him of any fleeting sense of stoicism on his part.

Finally finished, he smeared some of the Neosporin over the cut - tears still streaming down his face, but in slowly thinning rivulets - and wrapped his hand in a fresh bandage. He'd been working mindlessly through the horrible task, losing his capacity for higher thought temporarily to the pain, but as he stood there at the sink - panting heavily and trying to pull himself back together - he couldn't help but think about how nice it would have been to have had someone to do that for him. How nice it would have been to have someone else to tend to his wound.

How nice it would have been to have Beth to do that.

The last time he was injured in that house he'd had a whole group of people looking out for him. An entire group of people who'd had his back despite his surliness and his general lack of any real demonstrable gratitude. And so many of those people were gone now. Almost _all_ of those people were gone now. Not just gone from his life, but gone from this world. Maggie was the last living Greene and Rick, Carl, Carol, and Glenn were the only other ones left from the the old farm days. He shook his head in a literal - and what turned out to be quite painful - attempt to knock those thoughts loose. He really didn't want to start heading down that mental path. Really didn't want to start thinking about everyone he'd lost and how much different - and how much worse - things were this time around than they had been the last.

Didn't want to think about how last time around there truly had been a Nurse Greene taking care of him.

A real Nurse Greene in real flesh and blood. A sweet and shyly smiling girl who he'd basically ignored, but who'd made sure he had enough to eat and had seemed sincerely interested in his welfare. _Had been_ sincerely interested in his welfare. He knew her well enough to know that now. She'd been a young girl in an apocalypse - she'd seen her mother and her brother's walking corpses get locked into her family's barn, had her home invaded by strangers, and basically watched her whole world fall apart - and she'd still cared about the health and comfort of the random redneck down the hall. The dirty old man who'd taken over the spare bedroom and barely spared her a second glance.

She should have been a selfish teenager too caught up in her own understandable grief, her own unbelievable losses, to give a shit about some rude asshole leaching off her family's kindness. She should have been. She should have been, but she _couldn't_ have been. She couldn't have been because she was Beth and Beth fucking cared.

She'd cared.

And she _still_ cared. He tried to tell himself that. Tried to remind himself that he had medicine flowing through his veins right now _because_ of Nurse Greene. He still had her in some way and that really had to be good enough. It really had to be good enough that she'd saved his life from beyond the goddamn grave.

It really had to be.

It wasn't, though. It wasn't even close to good enough. He wanted her in flesh and blood and he wanted her with him. Like pretty much everything he'd ever wanted in life, though, he couldn't have that, so he had to settle for what he could get instead. He gathered up everything he thought he'd need for the day - the whiskey, the pills, and some food - in case he couldn't make it back downstairs later and started to head up to Beth's room. He needed to be close to her. Needed to feel her comforting presence. He needed to think good thoughts and her room was where good thoughts grew best. Bloomed brightest.

Well, there and in his bed at night.

It was daytime, though, and in his mind there was still steam rising off of his mattress from his fevered night's sleep, so Beth's room was the only place he wanted to be. It felt like his first journey to her door, the one that started all the way back in Alexandria, had been easier than that trip from the kitchen and he gratefully collapsed into her chair as soon as crossed that enchanted threshold. Since he'd injured his hand, he'd felt an increased aching for Beth's presence, so he'd stuck with the precedent he'd set when he'd first had the accident and given himself twenty-four Beth points to spend in her room each day: one for every now-infected stitch in his hand. That typically allowed him to open multiple Beth units and stretch his exploration out across the entire day - those long days when he was now basically stuck at home - rather than limiting it to the nighttime as it had been back in the old ten-point, pre-injury era. It was a pattern he planned on continuing and, sitting at the chair, he decided her top desk drawer would be his Beth unit for the morning. Normally such a choice would be fueled by some sort of strategy or speculation or spark on his part, but that day it was based on pure convenience. It was simply the closest and easiest place for his wrung out body to investigate.

When he opened the drawer, he was surprised to encounter the first thing in Beth's room that he could truly call clutter. He'd learned over the years that pretty much everyone had a junk drawer and, apparently, even Beth hadn't been immune to that aspect of human nature. And, at first glance, her junk drawer looked just like everyone else's, too. Had the same collection of mundane contents he'd seen in so many other homes: lots of loose pens, partial rolls of scotch tape, a pair of earphones, a few chargers, a tin of mints, a couple pairs of scissors, a deck of cards, and so on. As he'd come to expect, though, he also spotted a few things that were out of the ordinary. Things that seemed strange or special or simply _her_ somehow: a pack of mustard seeds with _Have Faith!_ written on them, an old silver baby rattle, a small wooden turtle, an empty spool of thread with googly eyes and a Sharpie smile, and a tape measurer shaped like a snail. There was more, too. So much more. The drawer was absolutely stuffed and there was a bounty of odds and ends to uncover. There was so much to dig through and explore, but his search came to an immediate halt when his eyes fell upon a homemade DVD. A homemade DVD with a title that made his breath catch in his throat. A title that made his heart stop and his head spin.

 ** _Cumberland Arts Academy - Summer Program Audition_**

The funeral home. Here it was again. Here it fucking _was_ again. Those final days, those last conversations. First Stopsign and now this.

Now Cumberland.

 _Fuck._

Beth had told him about Cumberland, a music school outside of Atlanta, the night she'd played piano in the mortuary viewing room: serenading him to his delight, and her imagined tolerance, as he'd watched the concert from his disturbingly comfortable casket. She hadn't played the instrument in years and, while it hadn't diminished his enjoyment in the least, her lack of practice had been apparent. She'd stumbled at multiple points during every song and had simply abandoned some pieces halfway through: smiling and shrugging in defeat. She'd eventually started playing one piece that had been different, though. Unlike her previous efforts, it had been clear from the beginning - even to his totally untrained ears - that she'd had complete confidence in it. She'd played it fluidly and easily and had even looked that way while doing so. She'd been tense at times during the other songs - shoulders tight or head crooked awkwardly in concentration - but, on that tune, she'd looked completely natural and relaxed.

Graceful.

And it had been a lovely little song, too. A sweet and gentle melody about lounging on a riverbank that had been both musically and lyrically simple. Almost childlike, but in a classic kind of way. Like a lullaby. He'd never heard it before, but he'd really liked it. Loved watching her play it. And he'd been struck by the difference in her performance. He'd imagined that it must have really meant something to her for her to have known it that well and he'd wanted to ask her about it. He'd always had a habit of phrasing things poorly, though, and he'd been especially off of his game that night - lying in the softest bed that he had in years and being seduced by the siren song of the girl he secretly loved - so what he'd ended up saying had actually sounded, at best, like a backhanded compliment.

 _You played that better than you played the others._

As soon as he'd heard the words come out of his mouth, he'd been mortified. Mortified and truly angry with himself for fucking up what should have been a nice moment. She'd done something special with that song and he'd wanted her to know that he _knew_ that - that he'd heard it and he'd seen it and he'd _known_ that it was special - but he'd totally fucked it up by pointing out the mistakes she'd made on the other pieces and insinuating that it had merely been the lack of error that had been notable about that one.

He'd fucked it up.

Or he _would have_ fucked it up if he'd been talking to anyone other than Beth Greene. Any other person would have rightly taken offense or been hurt by the comment (assuming they'd given a shit what Daryl Dixon thought at all.) But Beth was Beth and Beth had just laughed. She'd laughed that beautiful laugh of hers - a laugh more beautiful than any song - and agreed with him wholeheartedly.

 _I know, right?_ She'd said smiling, twisting around on the bench and peering back at him in the casket. _I kinda cheated there. I was getting a little frustrated that I kept forgetting everybody else's songs, so I figured I'd just do one of my own. They're not nearly as good, but at least I can remember them._

He'd been shocked to learn that it had been her composition and, as a result, he'd failed to respond right away. Which, yet again, had made him feel like an asshole. As if the silence had been his confirmation of her assessment: that the song wasn't as good as the others. She'd already turned back to the piano, presumably preparing to start another piece, when he'd finally been able to string some words together. He hadn't bothered to try to go back and rephrase his initial statement, knowing he'd probably just mess that up as well, and had focused on the revelation about her songwriting instead. He'd told her that it was really good and that he had liked it: not expressing the sentiment nearly as well as he'd wanted to, but at least doing it clearly enough to make his point. He'd told he that it was good and then he'd asked her when she'd written it. When she'd written it and _why_. Which had been somewhat of a bold move for him at the time. He'd been so terrified of her discovering that he was in love with her that he'd rarely made such direct personal inquiries. That had been a magical little night, though, and somehow he'd been able to be bold.

And that's how the discussion had turned to Cumberland and their Summer school for young artists. She'd desperately wanted to attend the program, which had focused on music composition, and she'd applied for it just a few months before the turn. As part of the process, she'd had to submit recordings of four original songs and the sweet tune that she'd just played so self-assuredly had been one of them. She'd told him that she wasn't very good at songwriting - laughing and saying _but you heard that already_ \- and that she hadn't done very much of it. That had been why she'd wanted to attend the program in the first place, but also why she hadn't had any existing pieces to submit to the school when she'd gone to apply. So she'd written that song about the riverbank, and three others, specifically for Cumberland.

He'd been so impressed with that. So impressed with her ambition. As she'd explained the quality of the program and the full extent of the application process - which had included not only the recordings but written works and live auditions as well - he'd realized that he'd never put that much effort into anything in his life. Not in that kind of way. He'd done much harder work - harder in a true, objective sense - but never towards things that hadn't needed to be done. Never towards things that went beyond basic physical or psychological survival. Even his devotion to hunting - which was the closest thing he had as a comparison - had deep roots in personal necessity. He'd never strived for something simply to make himself better. And that had been her ambition: simply to make herself better. To learn more and to gain a skill. She hadn't wanted to be famous. She'd just loved music and she'd wanted to be better at creating her own. And he'd really admired that about her.

And he'd admired her even more when she'd told him, with true conviction and only a hint of regret, that she'd been positive that she wouldn't have gotten in. The end of the world had silenced the selection committee forever, so she'd never know what their final call would had been, but she'd been convinced that they would have rejected her. She'd had very little experience and it had been a highly competitive program and, realistically, she hadn't thought she'd stood much of a chance.

But she'd applied anyway.

She'd written and recorded those four songs. She'd composed her essays. She'd gone to the auditions. She'd done all the work- put all her heart and soul into it - even though she'd been fully expecting it to come to nothing.

He'd been so amazed by that. He'd been so completely amazed by her character. And so completely unable to articulate that to her. He'd had no idea how to tell her what he thought about that story - and certainly no idea how to do it without revealing far more about his feelings for her than he'd been prepared to do - so he'd just asked her to sing the other three songs instead. He'd made a joke, as he so often did when he didn't know what else to do, and said that he was thinking about opening up his own music program _Mr. Dixon's Caterwaulin' Academy_ and that she could be the first to audition.

She'd laughed delightedly at the suggestion, so much so that he'd been worried that she was going to write off his request solely as a joke, but then had proceeded to get all serious: looking him straight in the eye and introducing herself as if she was truly a studious applicant eager to get into his school. She'd gone through a brief little patter about herself and her background and why she wanted to attend his academy and it had all flowed so naturally that he'd known she'd been doing it more or less from memory. That that had probably been almost exactly how she'd presented herself to the Cumberland folks all those years ago. She'd gone on to play two more songs: one about the changing leaves of Fall - which he'd suspected had been symbolic and had held some deeper meaning - and one about a lonely robot who becomes friends with a honeybadger and is lonely no more - which had seemed totally surreal to him at the time but, having seen her childhood drawings, now seemed perfectly fitting. And, just like the first one about the riverbank, they'd both been sweet and simple. They'd clearly been the works of someone new to the craft, and someone who'd probably never be a star, but they'd been good.

They'd been good and they'd been _hers_ and he'd absolutely loved them.

After she'd finished playing the robot song, and thoroughly enjoyed his bemusement over it, she'd told him that she was getting tired and was going to head off to bed. He hadn't been ready for his concert to end yet, though, He'd really wanted to hear the fourth song that she'd written and his desire was strong enough that, somehow, he'd actually managed to vocalize it. He'd actually asked her to play the last song for him before she went to sleep.

 _Gotta finish the audition, girl._

And, to his surprise, she'd blushed. She'd blushed and she'd said that she'd rather not. He'd been expecting that she might turn him down due to exhaustion, but it had seemed like she'd been demurring out of embarrassment. And that had totally baffled him. He hadn't been able to imagine why she wouldn't want to sing a song for him that she'd performed for strangers. A song that clearly hadn't been too personal or too poor quality or too whatever for the Cumberland people to hear. He hadn't understood it and hadn't been able to stop himself from pressing her for a reason. And she'd just blushed even more and, shaking her head rather emphatically, said that he wouldn't like it. He'd tried to assure her that he would, that he'd liked the other ones, but she'd just laughed nervously and insisted that he wouldn't. Looking at the piano in order to hide from his gaze, she'd told him that it was girly and sappy and that he'd think it was stupid.

 _I've already got the whole damsel-in-distress thing going with the twisted ankle_ she'd tried to joke _I don't need to make it any worse by singing a silly love song_

That joke had hit him like an arrow to the heart. Pained him terribly. ( _Still_ pained him terribly.) He'd been so hurt for her, and so angry at himself, because of the kernel of truth behind it. Or the kernel of _perceived_ truth behind it. The fourth song had been a love song and, though that knowledge had actually thrilled him, Beth had thought that he'd make fun of her for it. She'd been afraid that he saw her as too soft - which he'd known had been an insecurity of hers already - and she'd assumed that he'd take a love song as further evidence of her weakness. And that had killed him. It had killed him that she'd thought he'd dismiss her like that. It killed him that she'd thought he'd belittle her for any reason, but it particularly stung him that she'd thought he'd look down on her for something written from her heart. That he'd deride her over a love song. He'd been crazy about her by then and there was really nothing she could have done to earn his ridicule - to earn anything but the most good-natured, the most adoring, of teasing - but, even if there had been, singing a love song that she'd composed would have been the _last_ thing on that list.

As usual, he'd had no way of explaining any of that to her, though. He'd been caught in the same familiar trap: stuck between the words he didn't know _how to_ say and the words he wasn't _willing to_ say. The only thing he'd been able to think of to do that would really show her that he cared, that would be the true act of a friend, would be to let it go entirely. To set aside his interest in hearing the song and not press her to do anything she didn't want to do. As much as he loved watching her blush as a general rule, she clearly hadn't been enjoying it herself in that moment, and so he'd done his best to try to put her back at ease. To laugh it off with her.

But not to agree with her.

 _Well that's a fuckin' shame. Don't hear a lotta love songs at Mr. Dixon's Caterwaulin' Academy. Woulda livened up the school dance a bit. We mostly play ditties 'bout moonshine and squirrels and, believe it or not, lotta folks don't find that romantic._

At his teasing words, her nervousness had disappeared immediately and she'd laughed again - a true laugh that hadn't been used to disguise embarrassment or concern - and he'd known that for once that night he'd said the right thing. It had been so good to see her comfort, her happiness, return that he'd continued to joke with her as he'd gotten out of the casket and helped her to bed.

 _On the bright side, our mascot does happen to be a lonely robot and a song 'bout him findin' a friend's got school spirit written all over it. That's a right crowd pleaser there. So, you can be selfish - be the greedy little girl you are - and keep your love song to yourself if you wanna. You still passed the audition. Got a full scholarship to the Academy. Betcha you'll be our valedictorian, too. Play your card rights and I'll getcha one of 'em fancy caps._

That had been the last truly good night of his life.

That had been the last night he'd seen her successfully off to sleep and woken up to her the next day. The next night she'd been abducted and his world had fallen apart. They'd spent the evening together before it did, of course. That evening with the thank you note and _what_ _changed your mind?_ that he replayed and rewrote every day in his head. But that night that she'd played the piano - the night of Cumberland and _The Ballad of the Sad Android_ \- had been their last _real_ night together. The last one with a beginning and a middle and an end where they were still together and happy and safe.

And he couldn't believe that he was holding the soundtrack to that night in his hand. That he had a recording of those songs, those wonderful fucking songs, and that he could hear her play them again. That he could _see_ her play them again. Just the thought of seeing her do anything - hearing her sing anything - brought tears to his eyes, but the idea of watching her sing _those_ songs made him practically weep. He was already operating under a heavy cocktail of whiskey, fever, and pain and the introduction of such strong emotions to that mix simply overwhelmed his system. Unable to do anything else, he just held the disc in his good hand and cried for a few solid minutes.

He wanted to watch the DVD right away and almost lost it when he realized that he couldn't. The Greenes had a working generator, but it wasn't running at the moment. He'd been fine with using a lantern for light and hadn't seen a need to use the electricity for anything else. He'd gone without power for years, before and after the turn, and was perfectly comfortable with that as a lifestyle. Until now, of course, when he wanted to scream because he couldn't just put that disc in their DVD player and watch it. And he couldn't just go outside and start the generator, either. It was a relatively simply solution to his devastating problem, but it wasn't simple then. He probably couldn't even drag his ass out there and back and, even if he could, getting the thing running was a two-handed job and he definitely couldn't pull _that_ off. If he hadn't been feeling so ill, or so drunk, maybe he could have maintained a better hold of the happiness he felt from simply having the DVD at all. Could have held onto his wonder at possessing that miracle, despite knowing that his full enjoyment of it had to be postponed. As it was, though, he was overcome by a sense of loss - a sense of having her so close, yet still so completely out of reach - and it gutted him.

He laid his head down on her desk, using his good arm - still clutching the DVD - as a pillow, and let himself have a moment to wallow. Even though he knew the desire was more driven by his emotional pain than anything else, he was in enough physical agony to justify drinking some more and, after a few minutes, he decided to do just that. Raising himself up, he set the disc down and reached for the bottle of whiskey. He took several shots, too upset to feel guilty about his motivations not being purely medicinal, and just stared at the shiny DVD. She was trapped inside that thing. She was trapped inside there and he couldn't get her out. She was right there - right fucking there on the desk - and he couldn't get to her.

Actually, she was right there on the fucking _laptop_.

The DVD wasn't sitting on the desk, it was sitting on her laptop: a laptop that ran off of a battery and that might actually fucking work. Despite having mentally poured over every inch of her room, he'd honestly never given her laptop any real thought. He'd never owned a computer and had never really regarded them as particularly useful objects. And, since the world ended, they'd lost their value in everyone's eyes. They were just worthless plastic rectangles that decorated people's homes. Incredibly dull sculptures that had once been popular for some inexplicable reason. And that's exactly how he'd seen her laptop - or rather _not_ seen it - until that moment. With those fresh shots of whiskey racing through his veins, though, he finally saw it for what it was.

For what it had been and for what it could be again.

Trying not to get his hopes up, he pulled the laptop towards him and awkwardly opened it. If the computer could have run off of the heat of his gaze, it would have come alive with the glare he gave that power button. His eyes burned a hole in that tiny circle as his hand slowly crept towards it until his finger was within striking distance. Taking a steadying breath and chanting _please, please, please_ in his head, he closed his eyes and pressed the button.

And the machine roared to life.

The sweet mechanical melody broke through the sound of his own mental begging and his eyes snapped open just in time to see the screen flicker on: revealing a glowing image of Beth, Molly, and Stopsign in the back of an old beat-up pickup truck on a some gorgeous, sunny day. Though he didn't have a lot of experience with computers, he knew enough to know that people often used personal photos as their desktop backgrounds and imagined that, objectively, there was probably nothing remarkable about the fact that Beth had chosen one of her and her best friend to be hers. It was probably perfectly understandable - maybe even perfectly _predictable_ \- but it seemed completely _spectacular_ all the same. Given everything that had happened, everything that had brought him there, it seemed so significant - so deeply meaningful - that he spent several moments transfixed by it before he remembered to check the computer's charge. Not being that familiar with the machine, it took him a few frustrating attempts to figure out how to do that, but he eventually discovered that he had two hours and four minutes of battery life left on the laptop.

Two hours and four minutes of Beth.

Twenty-four stitches in his hand.

Even though he wanted more time, something about that seemed right. Something about that numerical symmetry warmed his already whiskey-warmed blood. Settled soothingly in his belly. Something about it seemed powerful and, like everything else, meaningful.

His hand was shaking with excitement and inebriated instability and he tried the best to steady his movements as he took the DVD out of the case and put it into the drive. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was scratch the damn thing because he was wreck. He managed to load it into the machine without incident and, fortunately, the computer's video player opened up as soon as it recognized the disc and he didn't have to waste any precious battery life trying to find the program. If he'd had endless power to spare, he'd probably have been frozen by nerves - overwhelmed by too many emotions to actually press _play_ \- but he didn't. He had two hours and four minutes and he wasn't going to waste a second of them. So as fast as his fingers could fly, he navigated a mouse for the first time in years and clicked on that little triangle.

That magical little triangle that was going to bring his girl back to life.

And, as soon as the video started playing, the tears that had temporarily ceased once again began to flow. There she was sitting at the family piano downstairs looking sweet and beautiful and radiant. She was wearing a modest, vintage-style dress that made her look like a Fifties housewife in the most endearing way. It was a deep navy blue and one of the few dark items in her closet. He'd appreciated it on the hanger and had imagined that it would have looked gorgeous against her pale skin, but actually seeing it on her put his imagination to shame. It was stunning. And her hair was, too. He'd almost exclusively seen her wear it in a ponytail, but she'd worn it loose that day and it flowed in soft waves down to her mid-back. It was achingly feminine and he adored it. As for her features, the audition had been recorded just a few month before the turn, just a few months before he met her, and she looked just like the young girl he'd known then. She was wearing make-up, though - just a little on her lips and around her eyes - and the effect made her appear a bit older. While she didn't look like the nineteen year-old he'd fallen in love with, he imagined that someone would believe that the Beth in that video had been nineteen. A very youthful-looking nineteen, but nineteen nevertheless. It was a somewhat strange effect: seeing a version of her that he'd seen but never seen. It was strange, but the strangeness was nothing compared to the beauty. The undeniable beauty of her at any age and the undeniable beauty of being able to see her living and breathing again.

As she began to speak, he could hardly make out her words over his sobs, but he didn't have to catch it all to know exactly what she was saying. He'd been right. Her patter to him at the funeral home had been straight from her Cumberland audition.

 _Hello. My name is Beth Greene and I'm from Senoia, Georgia. I'm sixteen years old and I've been playing the piano for over ten years, but I've only recently started writing my own songs. I want to go to Cumberland because I believe it's the best place for me to learn and grow as an artist and I want to thank you for considering me for your program. I hope you enjoy the performance..._

It was sensory overload. Seeing her. Hearing her. Hearing that voice that he'd thought he'd never hear again. That voice that he'd secretly feared that, one day, he'd forget. Hearing that voice saying those same words that they'd said so long ago. So long ago when the same girl, but a very different girl, auditioned for a different academy entirely.

Auditioned for him.

It was sensory overload. It was all too much, but he still wanted more. As she began to play the first song, the presumably symbolic one about Fall leaves, he cursed the computer's poor speaker quality. He should have been happy to be hearing her through a fucking soup can, but he wasn't above being greedy in the moment. He didn't want to hear her precious voice distorted in any way. It seemed like a crime. Not a crime against him, but a crime against _her_. Her beautiful voice was being assassinated by those speakers and it felt like a sacrilege. In a merciful flash, he received his sonic salvation when he suddenly remembered seeing that pair of earphones the drawer. He grabbed them with a speed his ailing body resented him for and hurriedly plugged them into the outlet. Putting them on, he was instantly overwhelmed by the presence of Beth's voice deep inside his brain. He'd been hoping to hear her more clearly - and he was - but it wasn't the clarity that shook him. It was the _intimacy_. It was so _intimate_ to have her singing right into his ears. So intimate that he stopped sobbing, stopped crying entirely, as she fully invaded his senses and he fell completely under her spell.

She was inside his head - truly _inside_ his fucking head - and he was gone.

His whole world was her voice and that screen and aliens could have landed on the front porch and he wouldn't have noticed. Or cared.

He was absolutely mesmerized by the lovely girl in the video. The lovely girl and her lovely song. She was so pure and gentle and sweet. Her voice, her face, even her body language, all radiated warmth and kindness. She was taking this audition seriously, but she was still having a joyful time. Finding her happiness in her music. A happiness that could be heard as well as seen and that he fucking _defied_ the Cumberland people not to have been enchanted by. She might have thought that she hadn't stood a chance, but watching her perform, he couldn't see how anyone could have turned her down. She might not have had the greatest talent, but she had a spirit that was magnetic.

And she was just so fucking _charming_.

She wrapped up the first number and introduced the next piece as _a song I wrote for someone I haven't met yet_. The title was _My Good Fortune_ and it was her love song. The love song she'd refused to play for him and which he'd always assumed had been written about Jimmy. Or at least about a crush of hers or something. He'd honestly tried really hard not to dwell on the origins of the piece because he knew that it hadn't been written about him and, selfishly, didn't want to think about it being written about someone else. Though it was unfair, the idea of her writing a love song for another man hurt him and, with that introduction, Beth had once again eased his pain. Relieved him of his suffering by revealing that the song was just a work of fiction.

If she had told the committee some story about a real person it was written for - said it was for someone specific like Jimmy or someone enigmatic like _the guy I love_ \- it would have eaten him alive. He would have sat there and listened to that song over and over and over again, because he'd never be able to stop listening to her sing anything no matter what it was, but he would have pictured her with someone else every time he did. Pictured her _in love_ with someone else every time he did. In love and happy and delighted by another man. Another man who probably wouldn't have been a man at all. Another man who would have probably been a teenage boy: a fact which would have only sickened his jealousy and made him feel even more pathetic for it.

But Beth was Beth and it seemed that there was nothing that she couldn't manage to make him feel better. Even speaking to him across the space of years, speaking to him through a message in a bottle that had been sealed before she'd even heard the name Daryl Dixon, she'd found a way to soothe his soul. Her love song wasn't about another man who had captured her heart.

It was just a dream.

It was _her_ dream and, as far as origin stories were concerned, that was pretty much _his_ dream come true.

He thought it was his dream come true, anyway. Thought it was the most he could ever hope for. As he sat there and listened to her sweet voice, with its intoxicating blend of fragility and strength, sing the first few verses of her heart's song, he thought it was damn near perfect. Her hypothetical love was a good man who didn't have faith in his own goodness and didn't believe that they'd be good together. Beth spent most of the song trying to convince him that he was special and that their love could be special, too. That it was magical and they were meant to be. He thought it was funny that she'd imagine having to persuade someone to be with her, but - if she had - he was sure she would have succeeded. The song wasn't necessarily great art, but it didn't matter. Any doubts a man might have harbored about loving Beth Greene couldn't have withstood that melody.

He was so enraptured by her tale - so caught up in her sweet, if totally unnecessary, persuasion - that he was absolutely positive he'd misheard the last verse. Positive that the he'd hallucinated it while in some kind of a dream state. He rewound the video and replayed the last few seconds, listening to every word, watching her lips form around every syllable, in stunned disbelief.

 _You'll bring joy and happiness to the lives of others,_  
 _And one lucky day you'll be mine,_  
 _Then we'll sing our sweet song to the stars above us,_  
 _Seven, twenty-four, sixty-nine_

 _My Good Fortune_. She'd called it _My Good Fortune_ because of that fucking fortune cookie. That fortune cookie with that message - _you will bring great joy and happiness to the lives of others_ \- and with those numbers - those supposedly lucky numbers that were his birthday. His fucking _birthday_. That fortune cookie was so incredible, so patently impossible, on its own and had now somehow found a way to make itself even more insane by serving as inspiration for her love song. Her goddamn _love song_. That fucking fortune cookie had put his birthday in her hands, told her it was lucky, and she'd put it in her love song.

She'd put his birthday in her love song.

The love song that she'd written for a man she hadn't met yet.

How the _fuck_ was he supposed to process that? How the fuck was his mind - a mind swimming with whiskey and fever and pain and grief and jubilation and sheer blinding love - ever supposed to process that? Was he honestly supposed to chalk all that shit up to coincidence? Act like it's just an incredibly unlikely series of events? Or was he supposed to believe that it was fucking fated? Was he seriously supposed to go so far as to believe that Beth wrote him a love song before they'd ever met? Believe that he was her _good fortune_? Believe that _they_ were the ones who would have been special together? _They_ were the ones with a love that was magical and meant to be?

Because that would be truly delusional, right? That would be literal madness. That would be thoroughly unhinged.

 _Right?_

Beth was halfway through _The Ballad of the Sad Android_ and almost done with her audition by the time he was able to break away from his racing thoughts. Place a temporary halt on all those endless and unanswerable questions about the meaning behind that song and the state of his own sanity. He forced himself to get out of his own head. To let himself out and let Beth back in. Let that voice that still sung so sweetly in his ears fill him completely and push everything else aside.

When the video finally ended, the weight of the silence - the _nothingness_ \- that followed was so crushing that he couldn't restart the thing fast enough. And that time, when he watched, he really _saw_. He really _focused_. He tried to absorb every little detail of her performance: every move that she made, every word that she spoke or sang. He studied her hands and the way that they danced across the keyboard. He noted the way she smiled dreamily as she delivered certain lines and the way she closed her eyes as she sung others, seemingly lost in the moment. He hung on every word of _My Good Fortune_ , trying desperately to memorize the lyrics so that he could analyze them later and just as desperately not to analyze them then, to stay present and with Beth. To have hers be the only voice in his head.

 _…_ _.Okay, that's it. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you giving me your time and considering me for your program. I hope you have a wonderful day._

It seemed so fitting that the last words he'd hear her speak would be well wishes. Well wishes for a group of strangers. It had been an act of common courtesy, but her _I hope you have a wonderful day_ felt anything but common. It felt sincere and kind and warm.

It felt like Beth.

He wanted to watch the video again - wanted to watch it on a constant loop day and night - but he knew he needed to ration his power. Until he got better and could get the generator going, he only had a handful of views left. (And there was a dark part of him that whispered that, if he _didn't_ get better, he wanted to be able to watch that video a few times on his way out.) Despite knowing that, he was still tempted to watch it one last time, but when he saw that he had an hour and twenty-four minutes of battery life left, he knew he had to stop.

That number again.

Twenty-four.

Everything was repeating. Everything was cropping up again. Stopsign and Cumberland. Those last conversations and those songs. That fortune cookie and his birthday and that number. He quickly turned the laptop off and felt like he'd witnessed a death when the machine went silent. When it transformed back into a dull sculpture again: losing all of the beauty and animation that electricity and, far more powerfully, that Beth's presence had brought to it. He was left staring at his own reflection in the laptop's darkened screen and he closed the thing as fast as he could, completely unwilling to look at himself. It was too much reality. He didn't want to see that haggard, tear-streaked face. Didn't want to see that man. That man who was sick and alone and so deeply uncertain. That man who had so many questions about his own fate. About the nature of fate itself and its specific dealings with him. With Beth. With _them_. With whatever the fuck was going on. That man who had all those questions and fucking _looked_ like it, too. He didn't want to see that man and was grateful when he heard that laptop snap shut.

He took the earphones out and ran his good hand through his sweat-soaked hair, slowing coming back into his body - back into the room - after his temporary escape. And it wasn't a happy return. It was a hard landing and he felt truly awful. His was unsurprisingly still running a fever, probably burning even hotter because of the whiskey, and was especially sore for having held himself in basically the same position for the full forty minutes he'd been staring at that screen. Even though he knew it would be brutal, he forced himself to his feet and stretched his arms high above his head, trying to loosen his cramped muscles and restore his circulation. It seemed like all of his blood filled and then fled from his head at once, though, and he felt dizzy from the rush. He pulled himself back from the brink of fainting, grasping edge of the desk for support.

He needed to lie down.

He needed to lie down but he didn't want to leave Beth's room. He didn't want to go back to his room, and he wasn't quite sure if he could make it there regardless, so he just decided to curl up on her rug instead. He had the fleeting impulse to grab the nightclothes that were still lying on her floor and ball them up and used them as a pillow. But even if he could have brought himself to do something that he would consider mildly creepy - and he probably could have - he couldn't bring himself to disturb that scene. Those clothes were resting right where she'd last stepped out of them and were such vivid evidence of her being _alive_ \- really alive and taking action - in that space. He couldn't touch them. So he just took a few steps, gracelessly collapsed on his knees, and maneuvered himself until he was on his back: pillowless but grateful just to be lying down.

He closed his eyes and his mind once again started racing. Racing with all that haggard man's questions. And, as usually happened when he was in her room and lost in his head, he started talking.

"What the _fuck_ are you doin' to me, girl?," he asked her, his words soft and somewhat slurred. "You know that's my birthday, right? I know you didn't know it then. Know you didn't know it when you wrote that and I know I never told you. But you fuckin' know it _now_ , right? Wherever you are. Wherever the _fuck_ it is you are. Where you get to learn all the secrets and work all the magic and control the goddamn universe. It was in that little handbook you got when you took over there, right? Told you old Daryl Dixon's birthday. I know it was. I know it was and I know you know."

"So what are you _doin'_ to me, girl?" he asked her again, bewildered.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do knowin' that's in your love song? 'Cause you fuckin' _know_ I want it to mean somethin'," he admitted freely. "You know I want it to be for me. You fuckin' know that. Just like you know goddamn everythin'. You fuckin' _know_ I want it to be for me. You know I wanna be the man you were singin' 'bout."

" _Christ,_ I woulda loved to have been the man you were singin' 'bout, sweetheart," he repeated, his drunken mind switching gears: moving from his questions about the meaning of song to his sheer appreciation of it. "Woulda wanted to be that man no matter what, but especially with _that_ song. That was a _good_ fuckin' song, girl. Really good and I ain't just sayin' that. Told you I woulda liked it that night and I was right. Shoulda believed me on that one. Shoulda believed me and played it, 'cause it was really good. Woulda _loved_ that…"

Thinking about her playing it for him that night started his mind racing in a whole new direction. He hadn't considered the ramifications of that before and they began to pour out of him now.

" _Fuck_ , girl," he exclaimed in wonder, though in his weakened state the exclamation was barely above a whisper. "What the _fuck_ woulda happened if you'da believed me? What the fuck woulda happened if you'da played that song that night? 'Cause, _shit_ , there's no way I coulda heard you singin' those numbers and not have said somethin'. Not have fuckin' _reacted_ to that. Was a total fuckin' dumbass then, trying to act like I didn't love you. Was a total fuckin' _idiot_ , but there's no way I wouldnt'a mentioned that was my birthday. No fuckin' way. Even if I had fuckin' _wanted_ to. Even if I had done my dumbass _best_ I wouldn'ta been able to keep my mouth shut 'bout that. Woulda been too fuckin' shocked. And you'da seen it all over my damn face. Woulda pestered me 'bout it 'til I told you and I'da fuckin' told you."

"And _then_ what the fuck would you have done, girl?" he mused further, his heart beginning to ache as he slowly grasped the full extent of that missed moment. "What would you have said? Told me you found 'em on a fortune cookie and they were your lucky numbers? Know how crazy I thought that was when I found out. Know how crazy and impossible that all seems to _me_. So how the fuck would it have seemed to _you_? You always believed in shit way more than I did. Always thought things meant somethin'. Thought they mattered. Saw meanin' in all kinds of shit. So how the _hell_ would you have seen _that_?"

He was crying again by that point, understanding the true enormity of that lost conversation. He had no idea what would have happened, but _something_ would have happened. Something would have happened. Something that would have cemented the idea that they belonged together in his mind and that might have even planted the seed of that idea in her mind as well. Something beautiful. Something good. It would have been a special moment that either changed the trajectory of all the other moments to come - maybe even spinning off into a path where she never got taken at all - or simply made their last night together even better. Even sweeter. Even more precious of a burden to carry around in his heart forever.

He grieved that missed opportunity. Mourned that moment that had never taken place. And hated himself because he knew it had been entirely _his fault_ that it had never taken place. If he'd been more honest in his regard for her, in his respect for her, she wouldn't have felt so self-conscious. Wouldn't have feared him judging her. She would have played her song unashamedly and everything would have been different.

But she hadn't - because _he_ hadn't - and he had to live with that now.

Alone.

"What did I do to you, sweetheart?" he asked her, his teary voice heavy with exhaustion and regret. "And what the fuck are you doin' to me?"

...

Beth Greene wasn't doing anything to Daryl Dixon.

Fate might have been working him over pretty good. Or maybe it was that God he didn't believe in. Or just the inescapable fact that improbable things do indeed happen. Coincidences occur. Whatever it was, whoever or whatever was weaving the web he was caught it, it wasn't her.

Because, no matter how strongly he might have felt her presence, Beth Greene wasn't a spirit that watched over Daryl Dixon. She wasn't a benevolent ghost that haunted her childhood bedroom and whispered sweet stories in his ear. She was a living, breathing person that roamed the halls of the hospital that had both saved her life and held her prisoner. She was well enough now that she was, in fact, _Nurse Greene_ \- or as close to such a thing as Grady allowed - but she wasn't looking after Daryl Dixon, she was looking after the injured officer in room 514.

It had been nearly nine months since she'd been shot, the length of a pregnancy, and she thought it was fitting that it had taken her that long to feel like a real human again. Her brain injury had been devastating and she'd had to relearn how to do almost everything. Even her memories had been mostly gone at first. She'd woken up, days after the attack, unable to control her movements and barely able to recall her own name. After months of rehabilitation, that period that she now considered her gestation, she'd slowly regained most of her abilities and many of the details of her life had come back to her. She still had major gaps in her memory - black holes of various sizes that dotted her auto-biographical landscape - but she was confident that she knew what mattered. Knew _who_ mattered. She knew her family: both the one she was born to and the one she'd assembled over the years.

And she knew that they thought she was dead.

Which haunted her. Made her feel forgotten and even more trapped in that hospital than she already did. They'd already come and tried to save her once. They'd tried to save her once and they'd left her supposedly dead body behind. Left it in the back of a seemingly abandoned ambulance when walkers swarmed them and they'd had no other choice. No other way of, at the very least, preserving her body and keeping her from being pulled apart. She knew that because it had been witnessed by officers and orderlies alike from five stories above: some of the same people who were later shocked to find her still alive when they came to use the ambulance the next morning. She knew that and she knew that it only meant one thing.

No one was coming to save her again.

If she wanted to get out of there, and she did, she was going to have to do it on her own. But she wasn't ready yet. In a bond that neither of them would have wanted to share, she too had problems with the grip in her left hand. And the whole left side of her body in general tired far easier than the right. She was still dragging her leg behind her by mid-day and that was just from the mild effort of making rounds at the hospital. She wasn't ready to be out there yet, but she would be soon. She was fully human now and she was getting better everyday. In a few months, she'd be able to break out of that place. In a few months, she'd be strong enough to do it. And when she did, she knew exactly where she was headed. The only place she wanted to be and the only place she thought she had any hope at all of finding the family that had long since written her off for dead.

As soon as she could manage it, Beth Greene was going home.

* * *

 _WARNING: EPIC AUTHOR'S NOTE_

 _Yes! She's alive! She's alive and I feel so conflicted about telling you that. And about not telling you that. This whole thing's been a really demonstration of the perils of being a first time writer (and not planning ahead.)_

 _When I first decided to extend this from a one-shot into a longer story, I had it in my mind that Beth was well and truly dead. I wanted to do a piece that explored Daryl's grief and dealt with the reality that we were given by TWD, because I hadn't really seen that done at length before and I thought it would be interesting._

 _Well, as you all know, there's a reason that most writers don't explore that avenue: because it's sad as fuck. I tried my best to come up with ways for Daryl to truly heal and move on - because I do think that, in real life, that's possible - but I'm just not good enough of a writer to make that happen. The only way I could make him happy was to bring Beth back and I really wanted to make him happy. (I have enough real people in my life that I let down, I don't need to create people to disappoint!)_

 _So, I decided she had to be alive. But, since we're seeing this from Daryl's POV, I assumed that her survival should be revealed to the reader at the same time it was revealed to him. And I operated under that assumption for several chapters before I realized that that was probably one of the reasons why everyone was bailing. Like Daryl, they believed Beth was dead and, like me, they couldn't see a way for that story to have a happy ending. Didn't wanted to invest in something that was such a downer._ _So, I wanted you all to know that she was alive and this chapter felt like the right place to do that (since it leaned really heavily on the idea of her being a spectral force.)_

 _And now I'm totally worried about that._

 _I worry that some of you will be disappointed that I've opted to take that somewhat cliched route and will wish this had stayed a more believable piece. And I worry that those of you who are happy Beth's alive are just going to want me to cut to the chase and get to the reunion already. Which isn't going to happen. She's still got some recovery ahead of her before she can make a break for it (surviving that bullet wound is pretty ludicrous to begin with, so I gotta make it a little realistic by at least having her struggle with it a bit!) And Daryl still has some things he needs to go through on the farm. Discoveries he needs to make. And I worry that all of the emotion of that journey will be completely undercut by the fact that you now know that Beth's alive. I find it hard to believe that you'll be as moved by his experiences now that you know that his grief will end._

 _Ah!_

 _Should I have told you sooner? Should I not have told you at all?_ _(Don't answer that! It's too late now.)_ _I really feel like I fucked up this aspect of the story, but as I said earlier, I've never done this before and it's kind of just grown like its own gnarly weed. Doing its own thing._

 _Oh well._

 _Thanks for reading my gnarly little weed (and my ridiculously long explanation of it)! Hope you're not too disappointed and that I see some of you again for Chapter 8! Have a wonderful week! :)_


	8. Chapter 8

_Greetings wonderful readers! You guys are so fucking amazing, I don't even know what to say. Thank you so much for your responses to the last chapter and the revelation about Beth. Your kindness and support mean so much to me. As I've said before, and will surely have to say again, I'm sorry that I'm so awful about responding to you. I'm totally sporadic on FFnet these days and an absolute no-show on AO3, but I read everything you all write and I appreciate every single word. Seriously. I know my behavior doesn't convey that at all, but it's true. I just can't get my shit together in general and I'm especially bad at this sort of thing. Other than posting this story, I don't interact with the world this way at all. I don't do Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever it is people do. It's just not part of my life to make comments and posts and do things like that. And I'm really sorry that I haven't gotten over my shit enough to make it a part of my life, at least in this forum, because you really deserve that._

 _Not to imply that a brief note from me would really mean anything to you, just that it'd be the right thing to do. :)_

 _And, on the continued apology front, I'm sorry that this chapter has been a bit long in coming. I've been sick again and it's knocked me out of my groove. (Should probably say 'pattern' or 'routine' since no one's ever accused me of being groovy.) It also means that we have a bit of a ' life meets art' situation on our hands. (Not that this is really 'art'!) As you know, Daryl's sick and he's drinking and I've been sick and high on painkillers, so author and subject have collided here and the result is…_

 _Well, this. :)_

 _Hope you like it and thanks again for reading!_

* * *

He woke up sometime in the late afternoon, the low angle of the sun coming through the window hitting him just right to rouse him from his dreamless slumber. Or really more the like the black void of unconsciousness he'd fallen into fairly quickly after collapsing on Beth's floor. Slumber was far too delicate, too comforting, of a term to use for the frozen period he'd just been through: the almost total suspension of life that his body had forced upon him. Slowly opening his eyes against the painfully bright light, he stretched out his aching limbs and let out a low groan from deep within his chest. Splayed out on her braided rug, lying in the middle of a sunbeam, the image could have inspired some analogy about a lazy housecat awakening from a cozy day's nap, but in reality he felt more like a wounded tiger trying to rally after a losing bout. The bacteria flowing through his bloodstream might have been microscopic, but they were as vicious as any predator and he felt he'd been mauled by the fiercest beast in the jungle.

His mouth was so dry that his lips were sticking to his gums and he could practically taste the infection in his system. It was hideous and as soon as he had some control over his movements, he rolled over and pushed himself painfully upright: staggering to his feet as fast as he could like he was trying to physically escape the foul sensation within his own body. He desperately needed water, but the whiskey was closer and he needed that, too, so he took a few lurching steps and grabbed the bottle. Thanking his earlier self for only loosely closing the cap, he was able to open the thing despite his discoordination and downed several shots in quick succession. As the alcohol cut through the thick paste on his tongue and settled hard and hot in his stomach, he instantly regretted his decision and fought back the urge to vomit.

No. No. No.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Water. Water. Water.

That was the extent and sophistication of his thinking as he slammed the bottle down and practically raced to Beth's sink. He turned on the tap and, using his good hand as a rudimentary and far-too-small cup, he bent over and rapidly began scooping the freezing cold liquid into his mouth: ingesting as much as possible, as quickly as possible. His arm was a wild windmill and he got as much water down his chest as he got down his throat, but he was burning with fever and was grateful for every drop that seemed to immediately steam off of his sizzling flesh. He was so focused on rehydrating that he'd forgotten to breathe and he eventually had to force himself to stop just to get his wind back.

Panting heavily and still hunched over, he took a small step to the left and sat down on the toilet. He forced himself to sit upright, trying to give his lungs more room to expand as they fought for the air that he'd been so cruelly denying them, and he almost cried in relief when his bare back hit the cool ceramic tank. The smooth porcelain felt like an icy miracle against his roasting skin: a winter wonderland in his own private hell. He closed his eyes and tried to focus all of his attention on that one square foot of his body. That one spot that didn't hurt. That one spot that actually felt _good_. After a few minutes, he finally had his breathing under control and had taken a crucial step up the evolutionary ladder: moving from wounded animal to wounded human being. Feeling like a person again, he opened his eyes and, taking in the scene around him, finally realized what he'd done.

He'd gone into Beth's bathroom.

He'd never done that before. He'd never gone into her bathroom. It wasn't like her bed. It didn't feel sacred or special or anything, but it had been something he'd been reserving. The first time he'd entered her room, he'd been so compelled by other things that he'd passed over her bathroom entirely and, after that point, it kind of became like this bonus place in his mind. Like this extra little bit of Beth that was there waiting for him when he'd final wrung all that he could out of the rest of her space. Though he was interested in everything having to do with her and her life, he didn't imagine there being anything especially compelling in there, so it had been easy for him to keep it set aside. Until that moment, when it actually had a practical utility for him - actually served a practical _necessity_ for him - her bathroom had always felt best being treated as his consolation prize.

Or maybe more like his methadone.

When he finished exploring Beth's room, when he could no longer satisfy his addiction to uncovering more of her things, he was going to crash. Hard. And he'd been hoping to use her bathroom to help him get through that. It was the place that probably held the fewest and most mundane parts of Beth, but still held _some_ parts of her nevertheless. It was his secret stash, his little security blanket, and he'd liked knowing that it was there and untouched.

And he still wanted it to be like that, in some distant corner of his mind, but in the moment it just felt good to be in there. Surrounded by all those white tiles. That crispness and that cleanliness. It was like a hospital, but in the best possible way. The place radiated health and hygiene. It felt like a place where _life_ happened, where life was nurtured and sustained, and he felt completely enveloped by Beth there. He was in a room full of her things and, looking out the door, all he could see was _another_ room full of her things. He was as deep inside of her space as he could get. Though he never would have thought of it in such terms, it had a womb-like feel to it. And, just like the rapidly warming ceramic against his back, it was comforting.

Soothing.

So he let himself be soothed by it and just sat there, slowly scanning his surroundings: finally seeing some of the contents that he'd never been able to spot from outside. There honestly wasn't that much in there. It was a small bathroom and, like the rest of her space, was neat and orderly. She had an old clawfoot tub with a clear shower curtain, which under different circumstances would have sent his heart racing with all kinds of visuals but, given his current condition, was just a fact that he only dimly noted as erotic. The truly active part of his mind wasn't seized by the fantasy of what he _could have_ seen through that curtain, it was seized by the reality of what he actually _was_ seeing through that curtain.

Or, really, by what he wasn't.

When it was still the beginning of the end of the world, back in the good old looting days, he'd been in enough people's bathrooms to know that they were normally overflowing with what he'd consider needless products - a fact that held especially true for women and teenagers - but the only things in Beth's small shower caddy were shampoo, conditioner, body wash, some sort of loofah mitt, and a razor. Things that even he would recognize as, more or less, essentials. (He'd never used conditioner in his life and didn't honestly see a reason why women had to shave - men, either, unless it got too itchy or too hot - but he could still appreciate the fact that those things fell into the basic hygiene category. Could easily be called necessities.)

And he was surprised by that.

Though he thought everything about Beth was special in some way, he'd always assumed that she'd have been more common in that regard. More stereotypical. More girlish. He'd imagined her having a bathtub lined with all those fancy soaps and scrubs and masks. Those pointless potions with ingredients that sounded more like weird desserts than skin treatments. Given the undisturbed state of everything else, though - given that tube of toothpaste resting just a foot away from his shoulder - he knew that those handful of items truly did represent her daily routine. No one had taken her _Sweet Bee's Exfoliating Orange Sugar Scrub_ and left her _Crest Baking Soda Plus Whitening_ behind. And, while he had actually kind of liked the idea of her pampering herself as he'd always assumed - liked it because he'd imagined her liking it and her presumed enjoyment had been enough to give the frivolous behavior value in his mind - he found that he liked the simplicity of that little metal basket even more. Those five basic items. Everything you need in one tidy package.

Just like her.

And it really was just like _her_. Like the Beth he actually knew. Like the low-maintenance woman he'd fallen in love with, not the age-appropriately indulgent teenage girl that he'd pictured living in that space. And that was comforting. Comforting to see those similarities, to feel that connection, but also comforting to know that she hadn't been missing out on all those luxuries for all those years. To know that she probably hadn't been longing for her nightly bubble bath or her elaborate morning cleansing rituals.

She hadn't been robbed of an innocent pleasure like that.

Well, she had been - they all had been, they all had been robbed of almost all of their pleasures, innocent and otherwise - but that hadn't been one of them. Not for her. Which was a small thing, but it was _something_.

A very minor relief, but a relief nevertheless.

Besides the sweetly spartan bathtub, there were only two other things in the bathroom: a two-door cabinet that stood against the wall directly opposite his perch on the toilet and a hamper pushed against the same wall, but on the other side of the door. They were both made of a rich dark wood and, like almost everything in the home, were antiques and seemed like family pieces. The hamper appeared to be a little newer than the cabinet, though, and was a bit more rustic. The small holes that had been drilled into the side to act as vents formed the shape of a heart and he wasn't sure why - something about the design or the craftsmanship that his fevered mind could identify but wasn't able to fully communicate - but he got the feeling that Tommy Greene had built it. Built it because they needed one around the house and added the heart because he wanted it to be special for Millie. It was a random thought, based on seemingly nothing, but it made him smile a little on the inside nevertheless (though his actual mouth remained contorted in a grimace of pain.)

He brought his attention back to the cabinet in front of him and examined the few items resting on top. There was bottle of some natural kind of oatmeal body lotion, a jar of honeysuckle infused hand cream, and a small spritzer of perfume. His inward smile over the hamper broke free into slight, but genuine, grin when he saw the name of the brand stamped in crisp white letters on the glass. Unsurprisingly, he'd never heard of it, but he thought it was a perfect title for her signature scent: _Happy_.

Except that perfume wasn't her signature scent to him.

It wasn't and suddenly that grin was gone. That grin was gone and he wanted to fucking cry.

He imagined that, in a different world, he could smell _Happy_ or that lotion or that hand cream and be reminded of her. In a different world, those shampoo and conditioner bottles that rested so neatly in the shower caddy would contain the scent of her hair. He could open them up, close his eyes and inhale, and be transported back to the times when he'd carried her and briefly, but very deliberately, positioned his nose over the crown of her head.

In a different world - in the old world - that would have been true.

In the the new world, though, there was no such thing as brand loyalty. The products you used were the products you were lucky enough to find when you were lucky enough to find them. The only thing that was consistent was you. So, as far as Daryl's brain was concerned, the only thing that smelled like Beth was _Beth_. Her signature scent was literally _her_. That natural aroma she exuded. That intoxicating aroma that was always there whether it was tucked into the bouquet of some randomly pilfered soap or being smothered under the stench of walker guts and decay.

And, just like her, that was gone now.

That scent wasn't in a bottle or a jar. The hand cream on her cabinet could have been vanilla or jasmine or almond blossom. The perfume could have been _Chanel_ or _Chloe_ or _Stella_. It didn't matter. That could have been any girl's collection he was staring at. None of it smelled like her.

And that broke his infection-ridden heart.

He'd missed her scent before, of course. Had mourned its passing along with the rest of her. Had even dreamed before coming to the farm that he'd discover some of it lingering on her clothes or on her sheets even after all these years. Dreams that he'd known had been foolish at the time but that he hadn't been able to stop himself from having anyway. It had never occurred to him, though, that there could have been a substitute and that he didn't have that either. He'd imagined her having all kinds of girly potions and products, but he'd never considered that from an olfactory perspective. He'd never thought about all those _fragrances_. He'd never had a woman in his life and so he'd never connected the dots. Never thought about all the scents those potions and products would have cloaked her in. All those different things that could have reminded him of her in that deeply visceral way - that way that only smell can - but didn't.

And that realization cut him to the bone.

He was sick and alone and not at all above feeling a little self-pity and it just felt so fucking _typical_. So fucking typical that he couldn't have what he wanted and that he couldn't have the next best thing, either. He couldn't have the original and he couldn't have the simulation.

He couldn't even have a fake Beth in a bottle.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was opening the cabinet. He didn't _want_ to open it, if he had been conscious of his actions he would have unquestionably left the thing untouched, preserved that last little bit of Beth like he'd always planned, but he desperately needed a distraction and his body had taken the initiative to try to protect his mind. To give him something else to focus on. Something other than those swirling feelings of loss and resentment that had come on so strongly and so unexpectedly and threatened to overwhelm him. By the time he was fully aware of what was going on, both doors were open wide and he was staring at the entire remaining contents of her bathroom.

And, in terms of a distraction, it worked.

It worked like a charm, because the very first thing he noticed - right there on the top shelf, up front and fucking center - was an almost full container of aspirin. It was a clear bottle and he could see layer after layer of gleaming white tablets piled decadently, almost obscenely, high inside. High enough to rise above the top of the label. High enough to look brand-spanking new. High enough to completely blow his mind.

He honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd seen that much aspirin. They had a decent medical stockpile in Alexandria, but he'd never laid eyes on it. Though he'd hurt himself a few times while he lived there, all those injuries had fallen under the category of _the ignorable_ and he'd never even considered venturing to the infirmary. Rather than underscoring its continued availability, however, the fact that they had aspirin in Alexandria was just further evidence of what it truly was: a relic of the past. In the apocalyptic present - in the real world outside of that strange suburban bubble - that bottle of aspirin was just as unbelievable of as that tube of toothpaste. Just as wondrous.

Just as wondrous, but far more _miraculous_.

Because if finding that toothpaste was like discovering Bigfoot while strolling through the forest, then finding that aspirin was like having Bigfoot jump out from behind the trees and save you from a bear attack. They were both astounding events to be sure, but one was a far greater blessing than the other.

Unlike the unconscious movements that opened the cabinet in the first place, he had to very actively will himself to reach for the bottle inside. He had no doubt that it was real, but it was like his arm didn't believe him. Like it was afraid that it was a mirage and that, if he tried to touch it, it would disappear. It had to be forced, but he forced it. Once he had the bottle in his slightly shaking hand, though, he didn't do anything but hold it - appreciating a weight that was probably only a few ounces, but felt like a few pounds - and stare. Just stare at these things that he needed - or at least wanted - so badly, but never dreamed of finding.

Truly _never_ dreamed of finding.

Never even came _close_.

Though he'd known that almost all of the Greenes' first aid supplies had been used either by his family or by the muddy squatter, he'd torn that house apart searching for them anyway. Searching for anything other than the few items that had been left behind in Herschel's medical cabinet. He'd looked in all kinds of locations: everywhere from the mildly plausible, like Shawn's old gym bag, to the completely ridiculous, like inside the piano bench. The only place he hadn't looked was the root cellar, but he'd even thought of _that_. He'd dismissed the idea as insane - and had fully raided all of the remaining food from down there anyway, so he'd known it was empty regardless - but he'd fucking _thought_ it. He'd actually fucking thought about looking in the goddamn _root cellar_ , but had never _once_ considered looking in her bathroom.

Her bathroom with the almost full tube of toothpaste that he'd known had been untouched.

The oversight made it's own sort of sense, of course. Beth's things held so much emotional value in his mind that their practical value had been completely eclipsed. Completely _negated_. He could never view her room dispassionately. Never see it from a utilitarian perspective. There was a logic as to why he overlooked it, but he didn't like the logic. Or, at least, didn't like the implications of it. Didn't like the fact that he'd let his feelings completely distort his judgment. Blind him to what was right in front of him. It felt just like when he'd missed that approaching walker because he'd been lost in memories of Beth. He'd gotten caught up in sentimentality and it had made him stupid.

And he hated that.

If he hadn't been sitting on the pile of repressed grief brought on by her achingly anonymous fragrances, it probably would have been a fleeting frustration. Would have been the skinned knee that he barely noticed while he was thanking Bigfoot for the timely rescue. As was so often the case when he was suppressing his real pain, though, his anger took on the intensity of the emotions it was supplanting and he became incredibly, and irrationally, pissed off with himself.

The hand that had been shaking in wonder was shaking in a far more upsetting kind of disbelief when he finally started to open the bottle and pour out a few precious pills - which ended up being a frustration in its own right given the child proof cap and his lack of dexterity - and he was well into a long string of curses by the time the job was complete. He put the bottle on top of the cabinet, leaving the godforsaken top off, and tried to dry swallow the tablets. They stuck in his still parched throat, though, and he was propelled to the sink by the force of the subsequent cough and was soon cupping water into his mouth again by the handful. Finally sated, he shut off the tap with a punishing shove and sat back down on the toilet: gazing at the medicine that he'd inadvertently placed right next to the lotions and the perfume that he'd been trying to avoid.

Though he'd now twisted it into a sign of his slipping survival skills - skills that had pretty much been the only thing that he'd ever had to hang his hat on, the only thing that he'd ever been good at - that aspirin had felt like a miracle when he'd first discovered it. And he kept staring at it, wanting it to feel like a miracle again. Because it _was_ a miracle. It really and truly was a miracle. Sure, he'd fucked up by not finding it sooner, but that didn't change anything. That didn't change the fact that Nurse Greene had once again saved his fucking ass. That once again his lovely little caretaker was looking out for him, providing for him, helping and healing him. Yes, on one level, that aspirin was practical object that he'd failed to find, but on another - much more meaningful - level, it was an incredible gift that she'd given him and he wanted to appreciate that. He wanted to appreciate _her_ for that.

He wanted to let his anger go and let Beth back in.

And that happened. Thinking about Nurse Greene and her magic, his frustrations fled from him. But it wasn't a relief when they did. Because even though it was generally comforting to believe she was taking care of him - one of the greatest comforts that he'd ever known - it wasn't comforting at all in that moment. It was soul-crushing. It was a guilt-laden nightmare because he suddenly remembered his revelation from a few hours before.

Though he'd fallen unconscious soon after questioning Beth about what would have happened if she'd played her love song that night, he'd been awake long enough to come to the firm conclusion that - while the permutations were endless - one outcome was for certain: she wouldn't have been kidnapped. He'd initially thought it might have just changed the events of that particular evening. Thought it was possible that everything else could have still unfolded the same way the following day, just with different memories floating around in his head as they did. The more he'd considered it though, the less plausible that had seemed and it had taken him less than five minutes to reject the idea entirely. To abandon any notion that the effect could have been so limited.

If she would have played that song, it wouldn't have just changed that night.

It would have changed everything.

It all came down to the simple and undeniable fact that the only thing that could have ever made him behave as irrationally as he had that night was emotional fear. And he knew that, if nothing else, hearing her song would have taken at least a couple notches out of that fear. Given him at least some small boost in his confidence in their relationship. So, even if that fateful exchange at the kitchen table had played out exactly the same way, even if the same words had been spoken, the same personal challenges presented, his reaction to it all would have been different. He might have still run for the door at her _what changed your mind?_ , but he wouldn't have been so completely panic-stricken as to forget all common sense when he did. To just throw it wide open and let their doom come marching through.

And that was all that needed to happen to change that night. All that he needed to change the entire script of her life - the entire script of _his_ life and, to one extent or another, the lives of everyone she knew or ever would have known - was a few extra seconds of rational thought. Just a small downward ratcheting of his pure, mindless panic. And there wasn't a doubt in his mind that hearing her song would have given him that.

If she would have played her song, she wouldn't have been kidnapped.

If she would have played her song, she would have lived.

And she hadn't played her song because of him.

He'd long since blamed himself for her death, of course. There was nothing new about that. The revelation about the song was different, though, because it traced the blame back to deeper and darker roots than he'd ever considered before. Pointed to such a long-term and fundamental failure on his part. Her death wasn't the result of a moment's poor decision making and it wasn't the result of his emotional cowardice - his fear of her discovering his love for her - as he'd always thought. Or maybe it was, but it was also more. It was also the result of him being such a bad friend on such a basic level for so long that she hadn't even believed that he'd truly respected her. Hadn't trusted him not to judge her. Some of that rested with her own insecurities, but he knew that he was really to blame. Knew that it wouldn't have taken much for him to have made her feel more secure. More confident. Knew that it was his fault that Beth - the crown princess of faith - hadn't believed in herself, or in him, enough to play that song that night. A lack of faith that had gotten her killed.

And here she was bring him aspirin from beyond the grave.

Here she was being a better friend to him in death than he'd been to her in life.

And now it seemed so fitting that he'd placed the medicine next to the lotions and perfume. There on top of her bathroom cabinet was a tidy tableau of shit he didn't deserve. Though it broke his heart, it only seemed fair: he didn't deserve a fake Beth in a bottle. Didn't deserve to smell _Happy_ or honeysuckle and be reminded of her. Just like he didn't deserve that aspirin. The fever wasn't going to kill him and the aspirin wasn't going to cure him. It was only going to make him feel better.

And he really didn't deserve to feel better, did he?

" _Christ_ , Beth," he said, voice barely above a whisper but sounding loud with the acoustics of the room. "Why are you _doin'_ this? Can understand you gettin' me antibiotics, girl. Know you wouldn't think I deserve to die for bein' such a shitty friend. But, _fuck_ , don'tcha think I should at least burn for it a little? Have this fuckin' fever roast me for a few days? Cook some of the asshole outta me?"

He wiped at the sweat on his face several times with his good hand, pausing longer than necessary over his eyes as he tried to push back the threatening tears.

"Made you blush that night," he went on, picturing so vividly her reaction to the idea of playing that song. "But it weren't the good blush, weren't the one I like. Looked pretty as fuck, don't get me wrong, but it ain't 'bout that. Ain't 'bout how you looked, it's 'bout how you felt. And you felt bad. You felt bad and you blushed for all the wrong reasons and that was all on me."

"So don't you think my cheeks should be flamin', too?" he asked her, seeing it as a perfectly legitimate parallel. "'Cause that's what this fever is, girl. It's the world's worst fuckin' blush and, _Christ_ , I deserve that. 'Cause that's what I did to you, ain't it? Gave you the world's worst fuckin' blush?"

"The fuckin' blush that fuckin' _killed_ you," he concluded on an empty sob. The tears that threatened never actually came - maybe he was simply too dehydrated, too wrung out for that - but he felt like he was weeping nevertheless. Heart torn, eyes squeezed shut, and sweat pouring down his face, the sensations were all the same.

"I love you, girl, but you shouldn't be doin' this," he eventually continued, shaking his head in defeat. "Shouldn't be watchin' out for me. Not anymore. You got me the antibiotics and I ain't gonna die. You've done more than enough, alright? Got plenty of other people out there that need you now. People that deserve you. Maggie and Glenn and Judy..."

"Should go look after Judy," he repeated firmly. His voice was still barely above a whisper but it no longer shook. He hated what he was saying, what he was about to say, but he was confident in it. He was in the grip of a fever- and guilt-ridden delirium and it all made perfect sense.

She had to leave him.

For her own good and for the good of everyone else that still mattered.

"Sure Lori's doin' her part, but you always were a mother to her," he furthered, trying to build his case. "More of a mother than Lori got a chance to be. And, no offense to Mama Grimes, but I know her magic ain't got nothin' on you. No way she can look out for that girl the way you can, even if she wants to. So _you_ gotta do it. _You_ gotta do it, girl. You gotta go look after Judy and forget about me. Just forget about me, alright? I'll stay here and watch over your stuff and you can go and watch over her and maybe I'll see you when I get back to Alexandria. Maybe I'll swing by Rick's one day and feel you there. But, until then, I'll just have you in my heart, okay?"

"And that'll be enough, Beth," he added after a beat. "I promise. That'll be enough."

It wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be enough at all and he was totally lying. And he knew that _she_ knew that he was lying, but he couldn't help it. It had to be said. He had to give her that assurance, even if it was completely false.

"She's much cuter than me, anyway," he went on, letting out a small parody of a laugh. "Be way more entertainin' to watch that little girl giggle and grow than to watch a sick old man putter around an empty house. Would make you happy to see her and I want you to be happy, sweetheart. I want you to be happy and this can't be makin' you happy. Can't be good for you, lookin' after me like this. Ain't what you need and it ain't what I deserve and I know you're too good of a person to walk away, so I'm _tellin'_ _you_ to go."

"Know you don't wanna. Know you think you'd be lettin' me down if you did," he continued, anticipating her objections and planning on using her goodness against her. "But you wouldn't be. You'd be doin' right by me. You'd be doin' right by me, girl, by givin' me the chance to finally do right by _you_. Givin' me the chance to finally be a good friend. To be a good man. I didn't treat you right when you were here, Beth. I know that. I fuckin' _know_ that and you _gotta_ let me do better now. Let me treat you right, okay? Let me let you go."

"I love you, girl, and I'll _always_ love you, but I want you to leave me alone now," he told her, the firmness in his tone gone. Though he was still holding back, some of his emotions broke through and his voice quaked as he spoke to her in parting. "You're so fuckin' _sweet_. You're so fuckin' sweet, but you're smart, too. You're _smart_ and I know if you think on it, you'll realize it's the right thing to do. So think on it. And then go spread your magic somewhere else. Go take care of Judy and leave me be."

He leaned forward and closed the cabinet, having never taken note of anything else that was inside. He didn't need anything else and he didn't want anything else. Not from her. He couldn't handle any more kindness, any more gifts, so he just shut the thing with blind eyes. He was willing to take some physical support from the furniture itself, though, and steadied himself with his good hand on the cabinet as he rose stiffly to his feet. Just a short while ago, that bathroom had felt so soothing, but now he just had to get out of there.

If he wanted her to walk away, he had to walk away, too.

He stepped out of the room and took a few long strides to her desk. After screwing the cap back on the whiskey, he gathered his remaining provisions - those miraculous antibiotics and their accompanying food - and walked straight out the door. For the first time, he didn't linger to say _goodnight_ or _I'll see you tomorrow_. He'd said everything he had to say already and hoped she wasn't around to hear any more.

Or, at least, he _told himself_ that he hoped it. He _hoped_ that he hoped it. Hoped that he had enough decency in him somewhere to truly want what he firmly believed was right.

It was a hope that only lasted the length of the hallway, because when got to his bedroom and saw her nurse's uniform hanging in the window, he knew that he wasn't that decent. He was still a selfish bastard and he didn't want her to leave him. He wanted Nurse Greene no matter how little he deserved her. And he hated himself for that. Hated it on its own merits and hated it because it only highlighted _exactly_ how little he did deserve her. Proved just how unworthy he was. No girl that good should be shackled to a man that greedy. Even if it was just in spirit.

 _Especially_ if it was in spirit.

Especially if it was in the spirit that he'd reduced her to by getting her killed. By robbing her - by robbing the _world_ \- of her physical form. She was dead because of him and now he wanted her to spend her afterlife keeping him company. Taking care of the man who hadn't taken care of her.

It was disgusting.

He was disgusting.

He was an irredeemable fuck and, as he set the antibiotics down on the nightstand, he briefly wished he'd never found them at all.

...

He woke up a little before dawn having slept through whatever relief the aspirin had provided him. It felt like the hottest, most hideously humid day Georgia had ever produced. Not like _it_ was that day, but like _he_ was that day. Like he was a steaming pile of human Georgia at its absolute muggy worst. Pain radiated up his entire left arm, burying itself deep in the side of his neck, and the smothering weight of his sweat-soaked and irremovable pants seemed paralyzing. He felt trapped in his body, trapped in his clothes, and trapped in his bed. Everything was too heavy and, when he reached a tipping point in his burgeoning consciousness, it suddenly became unbearable. In a move that he wouldn't have thought himself capable of, he practically launched himself out of bed and was soon standing on his feet: swaying slightly but fairly confident that he could remain upright.

He'd eaten the last of his food with his evening - or what turned out to be late afternoon - dose of antibiotics, so he knew that he'd have to go downstairs for breakfast. Which, despite the seeming impossibility of the task, he was grateful for. He needed to get out of that room. He needed to feel fresh air on his skin. He needed to go outside.

He needed to go outside and sit on Tommy's porch swing and fucking _breathe_.

He didn't feel like he could breathe, he realized. His lungs were working fine, but he felt like he was suffocating in there. It was a horrible sensation, but a powerful motivation, and he was out the door with the pills and whiskey in his hand before he had a chance to really register how agonizing the journey was going to be. The anesthetic properties of his perceived drowning wore off quickly, though, and he was fully aware of almost every grueling and dizzying step to the kitchen.

Somehow, he'd been able to ignore his thirst until he got within sight of the sink but, when he spotted that big empty glass sitting on the counter, he closed the distance in record time. He downed the first one quickly, so grateful to have a vessel to to drink out of that was bigger than his hand, but forced himself to go slower on the second as the freezing cold liquid hit his empty stomach: making him cramp and, once again, threatening him with the urge to vomit. He took his morning pills on his third and final glass and then set out to find some food.

He soon realized that his options were even more limited than he'd thought since almost everything was in cans and he didn't think he'd be able to open them one-handed. Not without a lot of pain and frustration, anyway, and he really couldn't handle that at the moment. Part of him whispered that it would only be worse later and he should get it over with now - save the more accessible options for his less certain future - but he really couldn't handle that reasoning at the moment, either. So he settled on the dried rabbit meat, figuring that it was at least a little more perishable than the rest and that had to count for something in terms of forward-thinking, and grabbed it along with the whiskey and headed towards the front door.

Getting the door open while maintaining hold of his cargo was a painful juggling act, but it was worth all the aching awkwardness when a rush of cool dawn air hit his blazing flesh. The sweat that had felt so inescapable and sickeningly slick against his skin began to evaporate as he walked over a sat down on the swing. He was still actively running a fever, though, and the sweat was replaced almost as soon as it disappeared. Almost, but not quite. There were still brief moments of respite, little windows of relief, and he savored them as he began to eat his meal.

The tough, chewy protein was almost inedible on its own and he took a shot with nearly every bite just to get the stuff down. It was a laborious and thoroughly unappetizing process and, for a little while, was sufficient enough of a task to distract him from his thoughts. As the alcohol entered his bloodstream and he fell into a pattern of eating, though, he started to think again. To truly think for the first time that morning about anything other than practical concerns.

And he really wasn't happy about it.

Because now he felt smothered in a whole different sun was beginning to break, the air was fresh and clear, and it was a gorgeous day, but inside his head there was dark and raging storm. He was assaulted by the half-formed memories of his conversation with Beth in her bathroom and the subsequent nightmares that had haunted his sleep. Memories which clung to his skin just like his sweat, but which the atmosphere couldn't relieve. Couldn't dissipate. No strong wind was going to unburden him of the images and words that were flashing so vividly through his mind.

As he always hoped she would, Nurse Greene had come to visit him the night before. She'd come to his sickbed in his dreams, stroked his face and his hair, and told him that everything was going to be alright. She'd offered him all of her comfort and her care and he'd ignored her. He could still feel the way that his dream-self had recoiled from her touch. Could see the hurt in her eyes when he did. Could hear the pain in her voice as she asked him to look at her after he'd shut his own eyes against the sight of her confusion. Could hear the desperation as she begged him to look back after he'd completely turned his face away. He could hear himself tell her that he didn't want her anymore. That he wanted her to leave. Heard it in a voice that sounded so cold and cruel and dismissive. So disrespectful and unkind. The voice of a man who was shutting a woman out of his life entirely. Closing the books on her forever and wanted her to know it. Wanted her to know that he was through with her.

And she'd cried.

She'd fucking _cried_. He remembered that, too. Had a horrible auditory memory of her nightmare tears - a sound that he could conjure up all too readily from real life experience - as she'd asked him not to send her away. Asked him to still be her friend. Asked him what she'd done wrong. What more she could do. And what was worse, what was so much worse, was that he had no accompanying memories of any reassuring words on his part. Any effort to console her or to calm her or to insist, to fucking _insist_ , that she hadn't done a damn thing wrong. That he was sending her away for her own good, not his. That he wanted her, that he'd always want her, but that he wanted her to have something better than a life with him. Something good and sweet and pure like she deserved. Someone worth her magic and her love and her charms.

Someone like Judy.

Someone with hopes and dreams and a real future that she could protect and nurture. Someone who could make her laugh and smile. Someone whose life would be a privilege to watch unfold, instead of an interminable one-man show that even the staunchest defenders of melodrama would probably find overwrought.

What haunted him even more than the nightmare, though, was his incomplete recollection of the conversation that had precipitated it. He was horrified because he couldn't remember exactly what he'd said to Beth and his dreams made him believe that, as usual, he'd gotten it all twisted. He didn't think he'd said anything mean to her, thought he'd tried to explain himself, tried to express his gratitude, but maybe he hadn't. Maybe he'd fucked it up like he'd fucked up every important conversation he'd ever had with her. Probably he had.

Of course, he had.

 _Of course_ , he fucking had.

The more he thought about it, and the more he drank, the more he became convinced that he'd done it all wrong. That he'd truly been that nightmarish version of himself. That he'd really sat in that bathroom and told the woman he loved that he'd had enough of her and then callously kicked her to the curb. Like her spirit was a burden to him. Like she was just this thing in his way and he wanted her gone.

By the time he'd gotten through the rabbit, he'd finished the entire remaining bottle of whiskey. The sun was still low on the horizon and, according to his rationing, he'd already consumed almost his entire day's allotted alcohol. Which was fine for the moment, as he was well and truly lit by then, but he knew that the effect wouldn't last until evening. Since he'd slept away almost the entire previous day, though, he still had some left over from what would have been that full ration, so figured he could use that later on. That brought him a small measure of comfort, but the real comfort had come from the distraction that the potential problem had provided him and, once it had been solved, he was right back to those horrible memories of rejecting Beth.

He really had no idea what to do about the situation.

He would have had no idea what to do if she'd actually left him, but he especially didn't know what to do because he was positive that she hadn't. He was sure that she was still around. That she was still with him. If she was truly gone, he'd feel it. He'd feel alone. He'd feel empty just like he had in the months following her death. The months before he saw her face again and started his journey back to the farm. And he didn't. He didn't feel forgotten on an abandoned piece of land. He still felt embraced by the welcoming bosom of home, by the warmth of her compassion, by that feeling of belonging that could only exist if there was something to belong _to_. If someone else was there holding the other end of the line. If someone else was there closing the circuit.

If she was there.

She was definitely still there and he had to try to make this right. It was an emotional and mental problem that would have challenged him at his best, but it seemed like a completely unsolvable riddle to his inebriated and infection-ridden mind. Because, the thing was, even though he no longer wanted her to leave him - assuming that he ever really had in the first place - he knew that he couldn't turn around and ask her to stay now. He couldn't be that selfish. He wished he'd never come up with the argument about Judy, because it was a solid one and he couldn't shake it. Couldn't shake the idea that Beth really should leave him and go be with her. That it would be the best thing for the two people he loved most in the world. He didn't have the heart to go make that case again, though. He might have been too selfless to ask her to stay - or at least aspiring to be - but he was still selfish enough not to push any further for her departure.

So what the fuck was he supposed to say?

What was he supposed to tell her to do? Go away but never leave me?

With that floating through his mind, he suddenly realized exactly what he was supposed to tell her to do. The answer was in the question itself.

He wasn't supposed to _tell her_ to do anything.

This wasn't about him at all. It was about her. This was _her_ fucking afterlife. She could do with it what she wanted. And if she wanted to be with him, he should get down on his knees and thank her for it, and if she wanted to go be with Judy, he should send her off with the most loving of farewells. The choice wasn't between being selfish or selfless: between keeping her with him and letting her go. The choice was between him acting like it was his choice to make or recognizing it as rightfully her own. Which it was. It was her choice. Not his. And he saw that now.

It was _her_ fucking choice and he'd support her no matter what and _that's_ what he needed to tell her.

As usual, he wasn't exactly sure how - had no clue what the right words would be - but that's what he needed to do.

And he couldn't do it there. Though he felt like she was with him everywhere, he only ever really talked to her in her bedroom. He held conversations with her in his head all the time, but except for a few rare occasions, he'd only ever vocalized his thoughts when he was in her physical space. Where he felt her presence the strongest and her comfort the deepest and where speaking to an invisible audience didn't seem crazy or dangerous or wrong. Didn't seem pathetic or delusional.

It seemed safe.

It seemed right.

And it felt good.

His body wanted to rest on that swing a little longer, wanted to keep enjoying the brisk air and those fleeting but beautiful breezes that kept cooling him off now and again, but his mind couldn't rest until he set things right with Beth. Until he undid - or at least tried to undo - the damage that he'd imagined he'd done. So, with movements lubricated by too many shots of whiskey, he started to make his weaving way back into the house: still in pain, but feeling much better on the drunken entrance than he had on the sober exit. He walked back into the kitchen and grabbed the pills, a fresh bottle of whiskey, and a jar of Patricia's homemade tomato sauce that he was pretty sure he could open and headed upstairs with his provisions for the day.

He even grabbed a spoon.

He could have sipped the sauce straight out of the jar, but he wouldn't. It was bad enough that he wasn't eating at the table anymore, but at least he knew that that convention had been suspended for the sick in the past. He'd taken his meals in his bedroom before, back when the Greenes were still in charge, and he knew that that had been the family way. But those meals had been brought to him on nice trays with silverware and napkins and all the hallmarks of civilized dining, so he knew that that had been the family way, too. Illness and injury aside, there were still some conventions that had remained intact and he intended to do the same.

After a labored journey up the stairs, made more difficult by his cumbersome load and its monopolization of his good arm - the arm the he would have used to steady himself on the railing, but couldn't, turning the whole production into a balancing act - he finally stepped through her doorway almost ready to collapse. He put his supplies down on her desk and tried to ignore the rush of emotions that seeing her laptop again provoked. Though he wanted to fall right into the chair, he found himself walking over to her window and trying to open it instead. The thing had been shut for years and it took a painful shove to budge the frame, but once he broke through the resistance, it slid open easily and he was immediately hit by a blast of cool air as it whipped into the stillness of the room.

He'd never even considered doing that before and he had no idea why.

He had idea why he'd never thought of it because it felt so _right_ to have that window open. He was hot and feverish and it felt better to have it open, which he supposed was why he'd done it just then, but he wasn't struck by the fact that it felt _better_. He was struck by the fact that if felt _right_. It wasn't about what felt good for _him_ , it was about what felt good for the _room_. And that room wasn't meant to be closed off from the world. That room was meant to be circulating with all the vitality of nature. To be filled with all the sounds and scents and sensations that were carried on the wind.

To be awakened and alive.

And there was a certain freedom about it, too, which he also liked. It didn't feel so much like that was what the room required, but it was what he wanted _Beth_ to have and he appreciated it on that symbolic level. He wanted her to feel free. To feel like she could come and go as she pleased without any limitations. To feel like she wasn't trapped with him in that room if she didn't want to be, but that it was a nice place to spend some time for as long as she decided to stay.

With a slightly lightened heart, he stepped away from the window and sat down at the desk: his knees ultimately giving way on his descent, but hanging in there long enough to keep him from truly crashing. He just landed with a heavy, buckling thud. It rocked his spine and sent a jolt of pain shooting down his arm, but it could have been far worse and the alcohol probably numbed him to the worst of it. He sat there for a few moments trying to compose his thoughts, trying to find the words that had eluded him on the porch. He found himself reaching for the whiskey, to keep him busy and to calm his nerves, but he stopped himself before he got there. He was plenty drunk already and, while he hadn't completely stuck with his intentions to drink solely for medicinal purposes, he wanted to at least try. Knew he _needed_ to try because didn't he just have a whole conversation with himself about rationing?

He shook his head and wiped the hand that had been stretching for the whiskey down his face: his sweaty palm doing little to alleviate the sheen of perspiration that was now his constant mask. He wasn't going to find the words he was looking for at the bottom of a bottle anyway. He probably wasn't going to find them at all, but his only hope was to start talking and see what happened. To start talking before he got completely shit-faced and became even more emotionally unstable than he already was.

So he did.

"Know you're still here, girl," he told her with a small grin. "Told you you can't fool me no more and you can't. I know you're still here. Know you didn't listen to me yesterday."

"Never could," he laughed lightly, but genuinely. "Never could fuckin' listen. But that's a good thing. Most of the time, that's a good thing. And it _definitely_ was a good thing this time. You _shouldnt'a_ listened to me. Shouldn'ta listened to a damn word I said. Not exactly sure what that _was_ , to be honest. Can't remember everythin' I said to you, but I know I shouldnt'a said it. Shouldn'ta said it at all and I shouldnt'a put it the way that I did. However that was. However it was, I know it wasn't right."

"You know I'm a dick when I'm drunk, sweetheart," he reminded her, with another, slightly darker laugh. "Know you know that too damn well. So I'm sure I was a dick to you yesterday. Been drinkin' then and I know that just made shit worse. And I've been drinkin' this mornin', too - which I also know you know - so I might end up bein' a dick to you again. And, if I do, I fuckin' apologize. Gonna say _I'm sorry_ right up front for whatever the fuck's about to come outta my dumbass mouth. I hope you don't doubt it, but I'd never wanna hurt you, Beth. Ain't got a lotta reasons to believe me on that, but it's true. I'd never wanna hurt you, so if I say shit that makes you feel bad it's only 'cause I don't know how to say the shit that'll make you feel _good_. It's only 'cause I got the gas messed up with brake and hit the wrong pedal or whatever. It's 'bout me, not you."

Having got through that opening, he felt a little bit better. Not like he had a clean slate, but like he'd at least laid a decent foundation for a fresh discussion. Like he was ready to start a new conversation: a conversation that addressed the issues raised by the old one, but was organized around a completely different theme. Made an entirely different argument.

"Way I see it, it all comes down to the fact that you didn't think I respected you," he said, figuring he might as well begin at the beginning. "That's why you didn't play your song that night and that's what gotcha killed. You didn't think I respected you enough not to laugh at you. And I can't tell you how wrong you were 'bout that and how fuckin' sorry I am. 'Cause it weren't your fault you were wrong, girl. Weren't your fault you didn't trust me. That was all on me. Gave you every reason in the world to fuckin' doubt me. Doubt my faith in you. My love for you. Gave you every reason in the world to fuckin' question that shit. And I'll regret that for the rest of my life, Beth. I'll regret that 'til the day I die."

He felt a pressure building behind his eyes and knew the tears would come if he continued down this path, but he had to push on. "Because you gotta know that I respect you more than anyone else I've ever fuckin' known. And I have for a real long time. Didn't always respect you as much as I shoulda. Can't lie 'bout that. Didn't always respect you as much as I shoulda, not by a _damn_ sight. But I respected you a lot more than you knew for a lot longer than you knew. And that just kills me, girl. That breaks my fuckin' _heart_."

"'Cause, the worst part is, I fuckin' _knew_ it at the time," he admitted after a beat, feeling the weight of that transgression heavy on his chest. "Wasn't like I was totally blind to that shit. Didn't realize exactly how bad it was. Didn't really realize how bad it was 'til that night. And I didn't even realize it enough _then_. Not enough. But, fuck, girl, hearin' that song? Knowin' that _that_ was what you was so worried 'bout? You just didn't get it at _all_. I mean, no matter what it was, I knew I was never gonna make fun of you for it. Knew that without hearin' it. Knew that without a _doubt_. But, fuckin' _hearin'_ it? And I ain't just talkin' 'bout all the shit with my birthday. Even if you cut that part out and just forget it. That was a good song. And the fact that you thought I thought so _fuckin'_ little of you that I woulda looked _down_ on you for it is just so _wrong_. So _fuckin'_ wrong...I really didn't realize shit was that bad. Didn't realize just how little you knew. But I _definitely_ knew you didn't know it all. Didn't get it all. And I knew it way before that night. Knew it all along."

"Which is such fuckin' _bullshit_ for so many fuckin' reasons," he continued, his apologetic tone taking on a more reproachful edge. "But it's especially fucked up 'cause I knew you _wanted_ my respect. I knew you didn't know how much you had it _and_ I knew you wanted it. How fucked up is _that_?"

A few errant tears leaked out on that ugly question, but he tried to hold the rest back and plowed ahead. "Don't really know if you cared at the prison, but when we was out there together, I know that you did. I remember how you looked when I was teachin' you how to dress those squirrels. The way you was when I was showin' you how to track and use my bow. What you said that day at the shack 'bout bein' just as good as all the other women. Arguin' that you was just as strong as Maggie and Carol and Michonne. Arguin' it like you needed to convince me of that. Like you was sure I thought they was better than you."

"Which would've been hilarious if it weren't so goddamn sad," he went on, shaking his head in dismay. "Thinkin' I respected fuckin' Maggie more than you. No offense to your sister or nothin'. No offense to any of 'em. They're good people and I respect 'em all, but I didn't respect any of 'em more than you. Not that day at the shack and definitely not that night at the funeral home. Was so fuckin' in love with you by then, girl. Was so fuckin' cross-eyed in love with you that it _also_ would've been hilarious if it weren't so goddamn sad."

"Guess we got ourselves a theme," he laughed grimly and sighed.

"Like I said, didn't realize just how bad it was," he continued after taking a few moments to once again fight back the urge to cry. "But I knew you wanted my respect and that you thought you was still earnin' it. Still tryin' to get it or havin' to work to keep it or whatever. I knew it and I didn't set you to rights on that. And that was a dick move I can't blame on bein' drunk. That was a fuckin' _dick_ move that I did day after _fuckin'_ day. Week after week. And ain't no amount of _I'm sorrys_ gonna make up for that. But, _Christ_ , girl, I'm fuckin' sorry."

"Was never any good at givin' compliments or sayin' nice things," he tried to explain, running his good hand through his hair. "Never any good at showin' what I felt. Unless I was feelin' pissed off. Was pretty good 'bout puttin' that one on display, but all the other shit I could never show. And the more I felt for you, the worse it got. Like the more I cared 'bout you, the less I wanted you to know it. More scared it made me and I just kept all that shit to myself."

If he hadn't gotten so used to it by now, and wasn't too lost in his thoughts to even notice, he would have been surprised by his openness. That's what her room did for him, though. He could say things there that he could never say anywhere else.

"And I was only thinkin' 'bout _me_ when I did that," he went on, bringing up what was - to him - another unfortunate theme. "Wasn't thinkin' 'bout how that might hurt you. Or least not thinkin' 'bout it _enough_. Not enough to fuckin' _do_ anythin' 'bout it. Not enough to get over my shit and _stop_ it. And it musta hurt you, right? Musta hurt your feelings to think I didn't appreciate you. Woulda hurt mine... _Did_ hurt mine."

"Not with you or nothin'," he clarified quickly, afraid that might have come across as a comment about her treatment of him. "Just in general. In life."

"I mean, you said you thought I'd think your song was _stupid_ ," he said in disgusted disbelief, practically spitting out that last word. "Fuckin' _stupid_. That was the goddamn word you used and I didn't say nothin' 'bout it. And, Christ, girl, people have thought I've been stupid all my life. Always thought I was stupid and worthless and I _know_ how much that shit hurts."

A few errant tears blended with the sweat streaming down his face, flowing as freely as his honesty. He wasn't thinking, but if he had been, he wouldn't have been able to remember the last time that he'd admitted having his feelings hurt. He certainly engaged in the kind of petulant and angry behavior that made that fact perfectly clear to people, but it wasn't the kind of thing he ever actually _said_.

Dixons didn't do that.

Dixons didn't do that, but - in that home, in that room - he could somehow act like a Greene. And Greenes _did_ talk about their feelings. They admitted when they'd been hurt. They admitted when they'd been hurt because no one called them a pussy when they did. It was a safe thing to do there. It was so safe and so easy that he hadn't even realized that he'd done it at all. Done this thing that would normally feel so impossible and so emasculating, but in the moment seemed like the simplest thing in the world. Like he was just stating a basic truth that couldn't and didn't need to be denied.

"I know how much it hurts to not be respected," he repeated, wiping his eyes absently. "I _know_ it and I can't _believe_ I let myself do that to you. I mean, I can. _Of course_ , I fuckin' can. 'Cause I'm an asshole like that. But, still, it's fuckin' unbelieveable, ain't it? That I could love you so much and treat you like that? I've just never loved anyone before, girl. Not the way I love you. And I guess I'm just really fuckin' shitty at it. Ain't no excuse for it. Ain't no excuse for it at all. Just explainin' how it is so you know it's 'bout me and my shit. _My_ fuckups. Not 'bout you. Wasn't thinkin' 'bout you. Not like I should have been, anyway."

"And I know this sounds like bullshit," he added, unable to stop himself despite his stated reservation. "Especially since I just said that I knew you wanted my respect. But honestly, girl, there was still a part of me that didn't really think it could be all that important to you. That's also why I didn't think hard enough on hurtin' your feelings. Like hurtin' 'em with the shit that I _didn't_ say, not with the shit that I _did_. Never thought hard enough on the fact that you really cared 'bout my opinion 'cause, seriously, why the fuck would you? Why the fuck would Beth Greene care what Daryl Dixon thought of her? Why the fuck would my respect matter to you?"

"No one's ever really given a shit 'bout what I thought of 'em," he elaborated, really wanting her to understand some of the reasons for his behavior, even though he knew they weren't close to sufficient. "Least not 'til the end of the world rolled 'round. And no one as good as you ever could. You're so much fuckin' _better_ than me in pretty much every way, Beth. Definitely in every way that matters. So it really seemed like you were totally beyond my judgment, you know? I mean, you _are_ totally beyond my judgment. Ain't no _seemin'_ 'bout it. But if it _were_ my place to judge you, you gotta know that I'd judge you as everythin' fuckin' wonderful and right. And I wouldn't find a damn fault with you."

"'Cause even your faults are perfect," he threw in, quirking a small smile and taking the opportunity to tease. "Like the one 'bout you not listenin'. That's worked out really well."

"And I shoulda _told_ you that," he stated firmly, his grin falling as his sincerity rose. "Shoulda told you that way before then, but I _definitely_ shoulda told you that night. Soon as I heard the word _stupid_ come out of your pretty little mouth, I shoulda fuckin' said somethin'. Shouldn'ta let that shit go. Broke my heart that you'd thought I'd think that 'bout you. Think your were a _damsel-in-distress_. Some Disney princess bullshit. But I didn't say nothin'. Just hid behind some fuckin' jokes. Like I always did. Doin' what was easiest for me, not doin' what was best for you. Just thinkin' if I could make you smile again, you'd be okay. It'd blow over."

"I swear I was doin' the best I could at the time, girl," he said, despite feeling like it was yet another bullshit excuse. "Pathetic as that fuckin' is. I mean, it _wasn't_ my best. _Obviously_ , it wasn't my best. But I tricked myself into thinkin' it was, I guess. I don't know. But I need you to know that I didn't realize just how wrong it was. I knew it wasn't _right_. Wasn't that fucked up. But I didn't realize it was so _wrong_. So wrong to just try to move past it, but not to try to make you feel better. Not to get the root of the fuckin' problem. Just to try to make you feel more comfortable, so long as it made _me_ feel more comfortable, too."

He thought he was being a good friend, or as good of a friend as he'd been capable of, but he'd been so selfish. And, as it had ever since he'd first heard her song, the more he considered his behavior, the worse it got.

"It's funny," he told her, letting out a grim laugh that indicated that it was anything but. "Remember thinkin' that night how wrong you were to think I'd dismiss you like that. But I really _did_ dismiss you, didn't I? Didn't treat you like you were _stupid_ , but I treated you like you were shallow. Never thought of it like that before…"

" _Fuck_ , Beth," he sighed, hating that revelation. Not that it was really all that surprising, or any worse than anything else, but it was just one more layer to his pile of regret. One more flavor of failure. "I treated you like you were _shallow_. I didn't think you were, girl. Don't believe that for a fuckin' _second_. Last thing in the fuckin' _world_ you are is shallow. But, _Christ_ , I really acted like it, didn't I? Like if could just make you look happy, you'd be happy? Make the pretty girl smile and her troubles will all go away?"

"What a fuckin' _asshole_ ," he groaned, his only consolation in the moment coming in the form of a light breeze through the window. "What a fuckin' asshole. Goddamn it."

"Ain't nothin' I can do but say I'm sorry for that," he told her, trying to pull back from going too far down the path of self-hatred. "Ain't close to enough. Nothin' will ever be close to enough. But that's all I got. All I can say is I'm so fuckin' _sorry_ for bein' so bad at lovin' you. So sorry for not settin' you straight that night and for not settin' you straight all the nights before that. For not tellin' you that you dressed that squirrel better than anyone I've ever seen do the first time. For not tellin' you that you had a real talent for trackin'. For not tellin' you that you were smart and special and a survivor and stronger than any other person in the prison. Any other person I've ever known. Had so many fuckin' chances to let you know that I respected you and I didn't take a goddamn one. So many chances to set you straight before that night even happened and I didn't."

"And I'm sorry for not settin' you straight before now really, either," he furthered, feeling an unburdening in apologizing to her that rarely held true with other people. "Know I've been tellin' you _I love you_ ever since I got here. Been tellin' you _I love you_ for weeks. But I ain't never told you _I respect you_. Guess I was thinkin' that was the same thing, but it ain't. It ain't and I _know_ it ain't. 'Cause I loved Merle like a motherfucker but I didn't respect him at all."

"He weren't all bad," he added automatically, a lifetime of coming to his brother's defense so deeply ingrained. "Had a lotta good in him people didn't see, but he was a definitely a fuckin' _Dixon_. He weren't a decent man. Weren't a decent man and didn't really wanna be. Didn't fuckin' care that much."

He was startled to hear himself mention Merle. Truly startled because it made him realize that he hadn't thought about him at all recently. Hadn't thought about him in what suddenly felt like so long. Merle used to be the ghost that haunted him, the voice that whispered to him constantly in his head. He had been even when he was still alive. But that role was played by Beth now - played so much more beautifully and lovingly - and he found that he really couldn't muster up the least bit of guilt about that. Couldn't feel the least amount of sadness or shame for largely forgetting about his brother. For letting him be so completely usurped in his mind.

Because he hadn't been lying.

Merle hadn't been a decent man. And, though Daryl could normally find a way to blame himself for anything, he really couldn't see how you could blame a person for preferring Beth's companionship. It was like preferring a hug to a punch in the face. And, while he'd very decidedly never been the hugging type, he knew damn well which one any sane man would pick. Knew which one even _Merle_ would pick.

And it wasn't Merle.

"I know love and respect ain't the same thing," he reiterated, returning to his train of thought. "So, for the fuckin' record, I _love_ you and I _respect_ you. More than anyone else. On both counts. On _both_ fuckin' counts, girl."

He took a deep breath as another rush of cool air streamed through the window. The timing felt perfect: the relief of saying the words matching the relief of feeling the breeze. He'd just spent the better part of the last ten minutes telling her that he respected her, but he felt like he'd _really_ said it that time. Like the declaration had been carried on the wind and the message had truly gotten through to her.

"Which brings me to yesterday and whatever fucked up shit I said to you," he continued, finally getting to the impetus behind the meandering conversation. "Like I said, I don't remember exactly what I told you. What words I used and how I put it. But I know I told you to leave me. Know I told you to stop watchin' out for me. And I wanna apologize to you for that, girl, 'cause it ain't my place to tell you what to do. Ain't my place to order you 'round. 'Cause I fuckin' _respect_ you. I respect _you_ and the way that you _think_ and the way that you _feel_ and the choices you _make_. Those are _your_ fuckin' choices, Beth, and I was an asshole for actin' like they were mine. Actin' like I know what's best for you and like you needed to listen to me."

"Good thing you're you and you don't do that," he said with the smallest of grins, more or less repeating his words from earlier on. He was still completely serious but, as before, he couldn't pass up the chance to tease her. He just enjoyed it too much. Enjoyed it because even though he could now say _I love you_ and _I respect you_ and all those revealing and emotional things that he could have never said when she was alive - and could say them with a comfort and ease that he would have never dreamed possible - teasing still felt like the most natural way for him to show his affection. Still felt like the thing that was the most like _him_ and, therefore, like the thing that was the most intimate to share with her.

"I don't know what's best for you, Beth," he admitted, more to himself than to her, not really liking that statement but acknowledging the truth of it all the same. "Can't help but _feel_ like I do sometimes. Can't help but think I know what's right. But that's so fuckin' arrogant of me it ain't even funny. So fuckin' arrogant of me to think I should be runnin' _anyone's_ life, let alone yours. You're more than fuckin' capable of makin' your own decisions. Of makin' _good_ decisions. The _right_ decisions. You're way more capable of that than me."

He might not have liked the statement that began that brief chapter of their conversation, but he liked the one that concluded it. Though he was uncomfortable with the knowledge that he didn't know what was best for her, he was perfectly happy with the idea that she was a better judge of that than him. It was absolutely true and, like so much that morning, it had felt good to say.

"So whatever you decide to do, I trust it," he assured her, his tone steady and sure. "You decide to stay here. You decide to go be with Judy. You decide to go to fuckin' Timbuktu. Whatever it is you decide to do, I trust it's the right thing. The right thing for _you_ and that's the _only_ thing that matters, girl. The only thing that matters is that you do what's right for _you_. And I trust you to do that. And I want you to _know_ that I do."

"Just like I want you to know that I know when you're 'round," he said, another tiny smile creasing his face. "I know when you're 'round and as long as you're here I'm gonna keep talkin' to you. Gonna keep prattlin' on and enjoyin' your company. 'Cause I love you and I love talkin' to you. But that don't mean you can't leave, okay? Just 'cause you know I come here everyday and look forward to visitin' with you ain't a reason for you to stay...Unless _you_ think it's a reason to stay."

" _Fuck_ ," he laughed, shaking his head at the needed correction. "Can't fuckin' help it can I? Sayin' I can't make the choice for you, but then tellin' you what your reasons should be? Didn't mean it like that. Just meant that I don't want you to feel pressured by me one way or the other. And I don't want you to think that just 'cause I know you're hangin' 'round now that I'm expectin' you to hang 'round forever. Like you've made your choice and you gotta stick to it or some shit. Like you're stuck bein' part of my routine."

"If I wake up one mornin' and you ain't here, that'd be okay," he went on, his voice slightly shaky as he fought the urge to cry at that thought. "I'd miss the _fuck_ outta you, don't get me wrong. I'd miss the fuck outta you, but I wouldn't be mad or hurt or upset. Wouldn't think any less of you."

"And I wouldn't think any _more_ ," he added, just to make it clear. "Nothin' you do is gonna change my opinion of you, sweetheart. Always been stubborn and, swear to God, ain't nothin' in the world I'm more stubborn 'bout than lovin' you. Lovin' you and believin' in you and respectin' you. Havin' _faith_ in you. Got so much fuckin' _faith_ in you, Beth, it's crazy. So if you decide to leave one day, I'm gonna know you did it for a reason. That you did the right thing. And I'm gonna miss the fuck outta you, but I'll be happy that you did it. Happy that you did whatever it was you needed to do. Went wherever it was you wanted to go."

"'Cause, Lord knows you've fuckin' earned it, ain't you?" he asked her, voice sounding steady again because, while the thought of her leaving him broke his heart, the thought of her pursuing her own desires truly did make him happy. "You've earned the right to do whatever it is you wanna do. The world is yours, girl. Least I fuckin' _hope_ it is. I hope to _fuck_ that's how this works. Hope the world is yours and you can go wherever you want and I want you to do that."

He wiped the sweat from his face as another timely breeze slipped through the window. He'd been so lost in his conversation, and so awash in a bellyful of whiskey, that he'd been able to pretty much ignore his physical discomfort since getting past the initial jolt of falling into his seat. As he came to the end of his speech, though - having said far more than he'd expected to and, once again, only really remembering half of it - he suddenly became acutely aware of his body again. Of how hot and sticky he was. Of how high his fever still burned. Of how much his arm still hurt.

Still hurt so _fucking_ bad.

He needed to take some more aspirin and he finally felt like he could do that now. Though it hadn't been conscious, the unworthiness he'd felt about being the recipient of Beth's care - the feelings that had prompted him to tell her to leave him in the first place and precipitated this whole mess - had made the pills seem untouchable until he'd rectified his mistakes. And he truly felt like he had. To the best of his ability, he felt like he'd addressed so many past errors and, though it had been painful to rehash all those failures, it had been liberating, too.

"So that's all I'm gonna ask you to do," he told her in closing, bracing his good hand on the desk and pushing himself slowly and stiffly to his feet. "I'm just gonna ask you to do whatever makes you happy. Whatever you think is right. And I'll just keep enjoyin' you while you're here."

"Promise I won't always be such a fuckin' chatterbox, though," he laughed lightly before wincing as he stretched out his aching limbs. Though it was little more than ten feet, the walk to the bathroom looked so long in front of him as his infected blood started re-circulating through his system: feeding his starved muscles but making him feel even hotter than he already did. "Won't always talk your goddamn ear off like this. Swear I'll give you some peace and quiet. But that shit had to be said. Probably coulda been said faster or better. But you know me well enough to know it's a fuckin' miracle I could say anythin' at all."

"A miracle you performed, by the way," he added, taking his first tentative step towards the bathroom: transferring his good hand from the desk to the chair for support and dreading the next step when there would be nothing left to hold.

"Ain't tryin' to blame the victim here," he chuckled, trying to joke his way through the agony of his movements. "Punishin' you with my yammerin' then tellin' you it's your fault. Just sayin' I can't talk to nobody else like I can talk to you. Ain't never been able to talk to nobody like this before. And I know it might test even _your_ fuckin' patience, girl, but that's a miracle to me. It's a miracle to me how you listen. Know I tease you that you don't. And you don't. But you do. You listen in the way that matters. Listen like nobody else does."

He was halfway there and, though his movements were more fluid that they had been, they were still shambling and awkward. He kept talking to her as he walked, both because he still had things that he wanted to say and he took comfort in doing so, but also because he needed the distraction. Needed to focus on her and on them and not on him. Not on the weakness of his body, but on the strength of the bond they shared.

"And I wanna thank you for that," he told her firmly. It been something he'd been very conscious of doing since the moment he'd first got to her door. That very first day on the farm. Thanking her. Expressing his gratitude whenever he could remember to do so because he'd done such a poor job of it in the past. It had been one of the many mistakes that he'd made with her and one that he was trying hard not to repeat. "Wanna thank you for listenin'. And for not listenin', too. Just like I wanna thank you for this fuckin' aspirin I'm 'bout to take. Don't know if I thanked you for it yesterday. Don't think I fuckin' did. But you can see what a sorry state I'm in, sweetheart, so you _gotta_ know I'm thankful as fuck. Thankful as _fuck_ those bastards are in here waitin' for me, girl. Another fuckin' miracle from my little Nurse Greene."

" _Christ_ , I love you, Beth," he said as he finally stepped over the threshold to the bathroom, bracing his hand against the doorframe before taking that final lunge to the cabinet. "You're so fuckin' good to me and I swear I'm gonna do my best to be good to you, too. Whether you're here, or there, or anywhere."

Though he couldn't remember everything that had unfolded after he'd first uncovered the medicine, he was pleased to discover that - for whatever reason - he'd at least had the foresight to leave the cap off the bottle. He shook out a pile of pills into his injured hand, pouring the excess back into the container awkwardly as he tried to measure out a decent dose. When the frustrating task was finally complete, he popped them in his mouth and, while other things were hazy, he vividly recalled his error from before and didn't attempt to dry swallow the tablets. Moving back to the sink, he cupped a few handfuls of icy cool water down his throat: the liquid and the promise of the pills they carried soothing him from the inside out. Unlike earlier that morning, the sudden rush of cold fluid to his stomach didn't cause him to cramp or seize up.

It wasn't a shock.

It was a _relief_.

It was as if, for a few brief moments, the furnace inside him had stopped broiling. The coals had been temporarily dowsed and he'd managed to make some small stab - literally and figuratively - right into the belly of the beast.

For purely practical reasons, he was tempted to stay there. To sit on that toilet and feel the cold ceramic at his back again. To maybe look into that cabinet and see what else was inside. He had a lot of stored up Beth points, after all. He had a lot of points that he'd slept through, so he could have justified the expense. But he still liked the idea of keeping it set aside. Of having it be his security blanket again. Because now, it would be even better than before. Because now, he already knew some of the pain that was waiting for him in there. The pain of those lost fragrances. He'd gotten that out of the way. And he had a good memory to put in its place. A memory of her kindness and her care. And that would make coming back into that room feel like coming home to her. Like coming home to her in a way that he knew that he'd need when he got down to that frightening point of only having two Beth units left to explore.

When that was all there was, when he was down to only two, they should be that cabinet and that hamper and he should be holed up in that bathroom: uncovering those agonizingly final pieces of her from the comfort of her architectural heart. From that gleaming inner sanctum. So he decided to stick with the original plan and headed back out the door. Though it had yet to hit his bloodstream, the aspirin in his system was already having a psychological effect and the trip back to her desk seemed slightly less arduous that the one that had taken him away.

Slightly.

It was still a struggle and, as before, he all but collapsed in the chair by the time he'd arrived: saving himself from the hardest of landings only by the fiercest of wills. He took a few deep breaths to dry to adjust to his new position and calm his screaming body down. When he had himself somewhat composed, he began to think about the day ahead. A day that had seemed so suffocating when it had first begun, but now felt as light and as the breeze coming through that gloriously and perfectly open window.

Physically, he felt like shit, of course. He was hot and achy and tired. So tired. Truly exhausted, but he didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to go back to his room and he didn't want to curl up on her floor. He wanted to get back to his exploration. He wanted to distract himself from his pain with thoughts of her.

So, with anticipation in his heart, he went back to searching the drawer that he'd abandoned after finding her DVD. That beautifully overflowing junk drawer that proved that Beth had been just like everyone else. And proved that she hadn't been like them at all. Because, though there were plenty of mundane objects inside, he also knew that there were objects that were undoubtedly _hers_. Things like that empty spool of thread with the googly eyes and the Sharpie smile that was beaming at him from the corner of the pile. That strange little object with an untold backstory and a wobbly grin that was so oddly delightful that it made him want to smile back.

With movements slowed by his pain as well as his respect for the task, he began to remove item after item: slowly spreading everything out over the top of her desk and creating a temporary display. As usual, he told himself stories as he went along and was only a fraction of the way through the drawer when he was overcome by a rush of a emotion. By a rush of _belief_. The sudden certainty that everything really _was_ going to be alright. He had antibiotics and aspirin and alcohol. He had bandages and Neosporin. He had all his physical needs addressed and he'd finally, fuckin' _finally_ , addressed some of the other things that needed to be tackled, too.

All those regrets.

All those mistakes.

There was still so much he had to apologize to her for. So many things that he had to try to make right, but knew that he never could. But he'd made real progress that day. And, though he regretted ever telling her what to do in the first place, he was almost glad that he'd done it. Glad that he'd had the opportunity to learn a lesson about being a better man. It was a painful lesson, but a needed one. A _desired_ one. Because, other than falling in love with Beth, the thing that had shocked Daryl most about the end of the world hadn't been the undead or the barbaric descent of the living that followed: it had been the personal revelation that he wanted to be a good man. Really and _truly_ wanted to be a better person than he was. Wanted to learn all those lessons in honor and decency and compassion that he'd never learned as a boy.

And he'd just had that experience. He'd grown a little that day. Become a little better that day. Learned a little bit more about himself that day. And, staring at that still bountiful drawer, he was going to learn a little bit more about Beth that day, too.

It was going to be a good day, he decided.

It was going to be a good day, no matter how sick he was.

It was going to be a good day, because Beth Greene never could fucking listen and what could make a day better than that?

* * *

 _Phew! I know that was a lot of talking but painkillers make me chatty and I decided that whiskey makes Daryl chatty, too. Moonshine kinda did. And I thought the combination of the situation with the song and his sickness and the whole storm of things left unsaid would bring all that out. Hope it wasn't too much for you, though!_

 _And I know it was kinda dark and sad in places and, generally, not a happy chapter, but we're leaving Daryl in a good place. He's going to be okay at her desk for awhile. And I say that because, in addition to still being sick, I also have family coming into town soon. They'll be staying for a bit, so it'll probably take me more than a couple weeks to get the next chapter out. Not to act like you're waiting with bated breath, but just so you know! :)_

 _Thanks again so much for reading and for all your comments and support! I hope you have a wonderful couple weeks and wish you all good HEALTH! :)_

 _NOTE: For The_Curious_Wonderer AO3_

 _I couldn't respond to your Guest comment on FFnet and couldn't find a way to PM you as you requested on AO3, so this was the only way to get back to you. Sorry it took me so long. To answer your question, YES! By all means, please feel free to write a story about Beth playing that song for Daryl. I think that'd be awesome. Just a couple things, though. First of all, if it's really obvious that it's related to this story (like you use the lyrics or the idea of his birthday or the fortune cookie or something specific) then could you make a little note about that when you publish it? Not that I want credit, I just don't want it to look like I stole the idea from YOU. I already worry that I accidentally did that with someone with the wooden engagement ring, so I don't want to amplify that issue (if it is an issue at all.) And, second, could you let me know when/where you post it? Because I'd totally love to read it! It's really exciting to me that you'd be interested in doing that, so thank you! Hope you're still interested after waiting so long for a reply! :)_


	9. Chapter 9

_Hello, dear readers! If you are, in fact, still out there. I'm so sorry that I've kept you waiting and that it's taken me so long to post this update. I know that I said that it'd be a while, but I wasn't expecting it to be a month! I'm still really sick though and life happens. Argh._

 _I'd also like to apologize for last chapter. I wasn't really happy with it at the time, but - having had four long ass weeks to reflect on it - I really hate it now and wish I'd never posted it. Unfortunately, though, what's done is done. You can't go back, Bob, so we've just gotta move forward._

 _And, on that front, I was hoping to mount a comeback by writing a great follow-up chapter. But, I'm sorry to say, I didn't really succeed there, either. I did, however, write a LONG chapter...so, if you're fans of quantity, today's your lucky day!_

 _If you're fans of quality, I'm not quite sure what day it is...but we can hope for the best! :)_

 _Thanks so much for reading! Now let's see what our man's up to..._

* * *

Daryl had done a lot of things that he'd never thought he'd do since the end of the world came around. He'd picked human brains out of his chest hair and considered it a perfectly normal grooming ritual. He'd stood over a rotting corpse in the aisle of an abandoned drugstore and only been bothered by the fact that he couldn't fit all those tampons into the saddlebags of his bike. He'd eaten expired cat food and liked it. Truly fucking liked it and wished he'd had more. He'd done a lot of things he'd never thought he'd do and this was one of the least expected of them all.

He was reading a romance novel.

He was reading a damn romance novel and the only thing that he could say about it was that it was no _Fancy Feast_. As far as he was concerned, it was the literary equivalent of that supposedly salmon-flavored slime he'd eaten that horrible winter: the only difference being it wasn't an unexpected delight. It really was as awful as it looked in the tin. Just as terrible as the horrid watercolor of an old-fashioned English couple strolling through a park that, somehow, was supposed to entice readers to want to open its cover. He'd spent the entire day reading it, though, and was fully committed to fighting his way through every insipid word. It didn't matter that he wasn't enjoying it -that he'd rather be reading one of Herschel's treatises on transmissible hoof diseases or the mechanics of the horse digestive tract - because enjoyment wasn't the goal.

It wasn't entertainment, it was research.

It had been four days since he'd poured his rambling heart out to Beth. Four days since he'd sat at her desk and said more words than he'd probably ever said in a single conversation and said the _kind of_ words that he'd never said at all. And, on reflection, he'd been embarrassed by the monologue. Embarrassed by the whole situation and deeply relieved that only Beth had heard him, He was glad to have finally expressed his respect for her, but he seriously wished he'd gone about it in a different way. And he'd been pretty quiet because of it. He'd still spoken to her in the mornings and in the evenings, and made scattered comments throughout the day, but he hadn't had a real conversation with her since that morning.

She still completely ruled his thoughts, though, and his exploration of her room hadn't stopped. He'd sleep so much at the beginning that he hadn't always used all twenty-four Beth points each day, but that had been his silver-lining as it just left more for later. Five days into his course of antibiotics, though, he was finally feeling notably better. Finally back to the point where, while he still needed to rest, he could stay awake throughout the day. His hand still hurt like a bitch - hurt in a deep tissue way that Beth's precious aspirin couldn't hope to touch - but his overall health had definitely improved. He wasn't a walking infection pretending to be a man. He was an actual man walking around with an infection.

Just a man with a flu who needed to take his pills and take it easy.

Which is what he'd been doing yesterday and what had led him to the surreal point where he was reading a romance novel.

He'd spent the better part of the day sitting on Beth's bedroom floor, leaning against the wall under her open window, and going through her school bookbag. When he'd first started exploring her room, he'd considered the bag a somewhat lesser Beth unit. It wasn't that it hadn't seemed important - everything in that room seemed important - but it simply seemed less personal than so many of the other units. He just couldn't imagine there being anything particularly revealing in there, certainly nothing that would compare to what she might have kept hidden in her closet or under her bed. It had seemed purely functional, so he'd consistently passed it over in favor of other, more compelling options.

At some point, though, maybe around the thousandth time he'd gone through her box of poems and quotes- the thousandth time he admired the loops and swirls and sheer beauty of her penmanship - he realized that her school bag would probably containing ever more examples of her lovely little hand in action. Long, flowing paragraphs that filled page after page instead of mere sentences on torn scraps of paper and Post-It notes.

And he wanted to see that so badly.

He wanted to see that so badly that it had been the single biggest thing tempting him to open her diary. He'd never stopped having reservations about _reading_ it, but he was constantly fighting the urge to _look_ at it. To thumb through it and drown in that ocean of words. To see that tangible and gorgeous evidence of her. Of her living and breathing and thinking and feeling and taking her beautiful brand of creative action. He'd stopped himself every time, though. Because he'd known that, no matter how hard he tried, he wouldn't be able to simply look at it. He would read it. His eyes would seize on all those gracefully executed words and he mind would be captured. He'd be caught in the web of her thoughts and he'd invade her privacy in way that he just couldn't allow himself to do.

Her school bag was completely different, though. He had no uneasiness about opening it or about reading anything that might be inside. It didn't feel like a violation. He imagined that, more than likely, most of the thoughts recorded in her notebooks wouldn't even be her thoughts at all. They'd be her notes on what her teachers had told her. They'd be facts about the Revolutionary War and descriptions of chemical bonds and all the kind of dry, boring things that had make his already easy decision to drop out of high school even fucking easier. But they'd be in _her_ handwriting. They'd be in her handwriting and he could hold them in his hands and see her - really see _her_ \- alive and in motion right before his eyes.

So, after being undervalued for weeks, the bookbag's stock rose and it suddenly became worth a significant amount a Beth points. Eighteen, to be exact. Partly because he couldn't bring himself to make any single unit a full twenty-four - he was still basically housebound and needed more Beth to occupy his day - but largely because the bag had seemed to have priced itself. It'd felt like it _had_ to be eighteen points because on the front pocket of the otherwise nondescript bag there was a button portraying her high school mascot that read _Senoia Chiefs_ at the top and had a big #18 stamped in the middle.

It had clearly been from a sports team and he'd known that it hadn't been hers. Though he'd rarely asked her personal questions, he had asked her once whether she'd played any sports in school because he'd wanted to know what, if any, athletic experience she'd had. What tools she'd had to work with as a fighter. If she'd played softball, maybe a bat would be a good weapon for her, he'd reasoned. Or, if she'd played soccer, she could work on taking walkers down with a kick to the knees before slaying them on the ground. She'd just laughed a little embarrassedly, though, and told him that Maggie had always been the athletic one. Beth had done some community sports stuff when she was little - played the kind of games where no one keeps score and everyone gets a ribbon - but once kids started caring about more than just having fun, she'd stopped caring entirely.

So, he'd known the button hadn't been referring to her athletic endeavors. And, though he'd tried to tell himself that it might have been her way of supporting Molly Rosenberg, he'd known that that probably hadn't been true, either. He didn't remember seeing a number on the uniform he'd noticed balled up on her bedroom floor and, though he didn't know much about track, he'd wondered if runners had even been assigned numbers like that at all. And, even if they had, he'd seriously questioned whether there would have been eighteen girls on a small high school track team.

No, it had most likely been Jimmy who she'd been taking pride in. Jimmy who she'd been encouraging and supporting. Tall, strapping, young Jimmy who'd probably played sports every season and had probably been good at them all, too. Had probably played baseball and basketball and football with equal agility and skill. Had probably been the captain of the fucking team and the go-to guy for every tough play.

Or maybe not.

Maybe tall, strapping, young Jimmy had only played one sport. Maybe he'd taken the other seasons off so he could put that tall, strapping, young body to work in his family's farm. Tending the harvest: being a good son and growing to be a good man. Maybe heads had hung low at Senoia High every spring when Jimmy had marched of the field: leaving the little boys to play their games while he'd labored for his loved ones.

He _really_ resented Jimmy sometimes.

He tried really, really hard not to, though. Tried really hard not to think about him at all. He only thought about Jimmy in those incredibly fragile moments when he came close to reading her diary. When he came close to just giving in. To allowing himself to live in that tiny pocket of moral ambiguity he could create if he started the process solely under the pretense of _looking_. In those dark moments when he thought that he might be able to let himself invade her privacy because he could argue that it had never been his intention to do so. He knew that he _would_ read it, but he also knew that he wouldn't have _planned to_ have read it. And there were times when he could almost let himself get away with that meaningless distinction.

And those were the times when he'd think about Jimmy. Because he knew that he'd be in there. He'd be a major character in her diary and he knew that there was no way - absolutely _no way_ \- that he could bear to read about their relationship. He couldn't read Beth explore her romantic feelings towards another man. (A fucking teenager, which would only make it worse.) He couldn't read her joyfully relate the news that those feelings had been returned. Couldn't read her recall Jimmy's sweet words or his thoughtful gestures or his grand plans for loving her. And he definitely couldn't read her describe the things they'd done together. He couldn't read her swoon over the magic of their first kiss or the thrill of the first time he'd touched her. And, if there was anything beyond innocent fondling in there, he'd probably be sick.

Truly fucking sick.

Because there would be no good outcome there. If she'd liked it, it'd destroy him. It'd destroy him to read about her finding physical pleasure from someone else. And if she hadn't liked it, he'd want to kill Jimmy all over again. He'd be horrified if she'd had a good experience and horrified if she'd had a bad one, because he was selfish enough not to want her to have had any experience at all.

Not with anyone but him.

In one way or another, there would be something in that diary that would hurt him. Something that would hurt him deeply and it would be because of Jimmy. So, he pulled the kid out of in those moments of utmost weakness and he never failed to keep him from untying that green ribbon.

Other than that, though, he tried hard not to think about him at all. Jimmy lived in a little red box that said _In Case of Emergency, Break Glass_ and that's where he stayed most of the time. Which is why, after thinking about it for a few minutes, he'd been able to dismiss the Jimmy connection and view the button as simply a numerical beacon. He didn't see the number 18 stamped on the back of a football jersey, he saw it shining in bright lights on his mental scoreboard. He only saw what it meant to _him_. What it meant to him in this new world he'd created. In a rare act, he didn't think about what it had meant to _her_. What it had really meant in the old world that she'd lived in.

The old world that he was, ostensibly, so interested in learning about.

He'd simply looked at the button as a price tag advertising a bag full of Beth for the hefty, but reasonable, price of 18 points and, yesterday, he'd decided to buy it. Spend nearly a full day's wages exploring the joys of Junior year. And, as he'd suspected, it had been worth the high cost.

More than worth it.

There had been three binders in there covering her studies in six different subjects and going through them had been far more interesting than he'd ever imagined. He'd more than succeeded in achieving his original goal: to see extended examples of her penmanship. She'd been a copious note taker and, between them, the binders had been filled with literally hundreds of pages of her writing. Her work had been dated and he'd been amazed, but not necessarily surprised, to see that she'd sometimes filled out five or six pages of notes in a single class period. He didn't remember his own school days very well, but he was pretty sure that most classes took about an hour and he'd thought that it was fitting that she'd written more in an hour than he'd probably written during his entire high school career. Most of the content had been completely dull and impersonal, of course: interesting only because the words had once flowed through her beautiful brain and been captured by her beautiful hands. He'd known that going in, though, and hadn't been the least bit disappointed. He'd still spent hours reading page after lovely page.

What he hadn't expected - and what had kept him pouring through every single word - was that, even in that desert of dry content, Beth had still found a way to assert herself. Though it was clear that a lot of the material had been basically dictation - reflecting both the ideas and the phrasing of her instructor - the pages had been sprinkled with delightful snippets that were obviously her own.

By chance, he'd gone through her history binder first and, before the outbreak hit, she'd been studying the Cold War. Her teacher had outlined, and Beth had dutifully recorded, some of the horrors of Stalinist Russia and he'd laughed a much needed laugh when he'd seen the note she'd made in the margin, right next to the laundry list of the dictator's crimes.

 _Google childhood. Hardship? Abuse?_

One of the most brutal leaders of the twentieth century - a man who'd been responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people - and she'd wondered about his life as a boy. She'd _worried_ about his life as a boy. Daryl knew her well enough to know that. Well enough to know what thoughts, what feelings, had lurked behind those questions. She'd been willing to feel sorry for Stalin. If she'd discovered that he'd had a hard childhood - learned that he'd been mistreated or abused or neglected - she'd have found compassion for him.

And that was so like her. Not just like her to have compassion for the lowest of men, but like her to go out of her way to try to _find_ it. To look for a reason against all odds. Against all evidence. She hadn't _known_ if Stalin had had a hard life. She hadn't known if there was any possible explanation for why he would have done such cruel things, but she hadn't been willing to write him off as purely evil. She'd seen him as a human being. She'd seen him as a man who'd once been a boy and she'd wondered how that then-innocent child had been treated.

His favorite part of her history notes hadn't been seeing a piece of Beth that had been put on the page, though. It had been seeing something that had been put on page and then _become_ a piece of Beth. A piece of Beth's vocabulary and a treasured part of his memories of their time together. Something that he'd always thought was just a personal quirk, but now understood had a completely different, and he thought hilarious, origin.

As part of their studies of the Cold War, her class had spent a day going over the Berlin Blockade: an event he'd actually known a little about because Merle had sometimes had a weird thing for watching war documentaries when he'd been especially high and Daryl had always welcomed the deviation from his normal habit of viewing porn. Beth had diligently detailed all of the American actions to bring assistance to the citizens of the besieged city, including the massive military airlift of food. He'd known that the government had conducted that mission, but until he'd read Beth's notes, he hadn't known that that mission had had a name. And when he'd read that name, he'd laughed so hard his hand had throbbed.

 _Operation Vittles_

It was a funny name in its own right, but that hadn't been why he'd laughed. He'd laughed because that's what Beth had always called their quest for food: _Operation Vittles_. When they'd been raiding a home or tracking game, they'd been conducting _Operation Vittles_. She'd sometimes even call him _Master_ Dixon instead of _Mister_ Dixon just to keep up with the military theme, throwing in a mock salute and a cheeky grin.

 _Looks like we're hot on a rabbit trail here, Master Dixon. Operation Vittles is a go._

 _Lead the way, Private._

He'd always loved that. Loved the nicknames and loved _Operation Vittles_. It had always felt so perfect to him. Because it really had been an _operation_. It really had been a combat mission. And what they'd been searching for - or, at least, what they'd ended up finding and eating - really had been _vittles_. It was a word that could probably be applied to any manner of food but, in his mind, had always had a decidedly redneck and low-rent connotation. They didn't sell _vittles_ at a Paris bistro, they sold _vittles_ at a roadside diner that scraped its meat off of that very roadside. _Vittles_ were squirrels and pickled pigs feet and unidentifiable jerky.

 _Vittles_ were exactly what they'd been looking for.

It had just seemed so fitting, and she was always so good with words, that he'd never even considered that it might have been a reference to something. Never considered that that phrase hadn't been her own. And, while another person might have thought that that diminished it, he'd found that it made him like it even more. It made the whole thing so much more powerful. So much more meaningful. Because it made him a part of an arc that had begun before they'd even met. He was part of a storyline that had started one random afternoon in second period American History when those words first entered her brain. They'd taken root in her mind that day and, years later, a Stalin wannabe would create a situation where she'd plant them in his mind, too. And then, months later, another Stalin wannabe would silence her mind forever and create the situation where he was able to go back to where it all began. Where he was sitting in her room: completing the circle and seeing the moment - running his shaking fingers over the inky moment - when that phrase had first entered her world.

And he'd thought that that was beautiful.

And he'd loved seeing something that was _theirs_ in her handwriting. It had felt so incredibly personal that he'd taken that page out of the notebook and added it to his collection on his dresser shine. He was almost tempted to fold it up and put it in his pocket with his pictures, but he couldn't bring himself to damage it or risk the paper getting ruined if it happened to get bloody or wet. Which it most certainly would. So it went on the dresser next to all his other precious relics instead.

Discovering _Operation Vittles_ might have been his favorite part of history, but there had been plenty of other joys in there, too. Because she hadn't just _incorporated_ the words of others into her own life, she'd also _interpreted_ the words of others according to her own life. She'd seen her world reflected in seemingly random places and the results had also made him smile. As part of her epic history notes, she'd recorded a quote by Harry Truman describing his stance against the nation's emerging foe.

 _"We have to get tough with the Russians. They don't know how to behave. They are like bulls in a china shop. They are only 25 years old. We are over 100 and the British are centuries older. We have to teach them how to behave."_

There was nothing humorous about the President's statement, but what had been so funny to him was the part that Beth had underlined and the comment she'd written underneath the passage.

 _Tell Maggie she's just like Russia. And tell Daddy he's like America. He'll like that!_

He'd loved the idea of Maggie as a brash Russian bull in a china shop. By Dixon standards, she'd undoubtedly been an incredibly wholesome young woman, but he could see how - by Greene standards - she could have been considered a bit of a rebel. A bit too bold and a bit too loud and a bit too forthcoming. Not in a way that had made them love her any less, but in a way that had set her apart from her siblings and challenged Herschel like his youngest daughter never would.

Maggie hadn't been singled out for Beth's historical treatment, though. Her notebook contained a quote originating from the other side of the Cold War divide, too. A quote by Khrushchev that he'd been kind of surprised had been taught to her in school and even more surprised to discover had also struck a familial nerve.

 _"Berlin is the testicles of the West. When I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin."_

In the margins next the strangely graphic statement, she'd made an note that had made him laugh even more than the Maggie one had. Laugh because it was unexpectedly aggressive and because it had made him insanely curious as to the incident that had precipitated it.

 _I'm definitely not squeezing them, but Shawn needs a swift kick to his Berlin!_

She'd become a hell of a fighter over the years - the kind of fighter who real _could_ fuck up a man's Berlin - but at the time she'd written that, she'd have been almost a joke of an opponent. Small and weak and probably unable to even make a proper fist. And the idea of that completely ineffectual girl stomping her feet in impotent anger and threatening her brother's manhood had made him laugh, too. Especially because he'd imagined that, at that point in her life, that's exactly what she would have called it. She wouldn't have been comfortable saying _balls_ or _nuts_ or any of the thousand far dirtier words Daryl would think to use. She would have told her brother that she was going to kick him in his _Berlin_ if he didn't stop doing whatever the mystery behavior was and Shawn would have laughed his ass off at his too sweet little sister. But, since he was a Greene, he probably would have stopped. Because, even though he'd have been completely safe, he'd have realized just how much he'd been upsetting her.

And _that_ wasn't funny at all - and maybe it wasn't even true, maybe it represented an idealized version of his favorite family - but he'd liked the idea of it a lot and it had made him smile, too.

History had been an unexpected boon, but science and math had obviously been less interesting for her. Her notes on those subjects had been far less extensive and there had been no indication that she'd reflected on any of the information she'd recorded. Her personality had still been on the page, though. Just as clearly as it had been with her social studies, only in different ways. Because her lack of interest in that material wasn't just an inference that he'd made based on the skimpiness of her work, it was a fact that she'd made abundantly clear in her own words. The margins of her notes were riddled with reflections on her boredom and her obvious attempts to kill time while appearing like she was still being a good student.

She'd taken pre-calculus and, in a character trait that he couldn't blame her for in the least, she'd found it incredibly dull. And, in her own mild way, had obviously resented even being there.

 _If you're gonna make me study imaginary numbers, why can't I do it in an imaginary class?_

It had clearly been torturous for her and almost every day there would be some reference to the seeming endlessness of the class: often accompanied by a drawing of a clock. A simple circle with two hands and a few numbers that even her artistically challenged self could execute.

 _If I'm counting the seconds until I get out of here, does that qualify as math?_

He'd thought that it was funny that, even as she'd ignored the subject of her studies, she'd kept so many of her comments on topic. She hadn't wanted to be doing math, but she'd often phrase her displeasure in math-related terms. No matter how much she tried to break the rules and disregard her scholastic responsibilities, there had still been a part of her that had stayed in line. If it had been him, his comments would have read _fuck this_ or _who cares_ , but hers had said things like _I'd love to solve your problems, Mr. Howard, but I've got problems of my own_.

The one he'd like the most, though, had taken up the entire margin of one page of notes: one long column that was a shining tribute to tedium.

 _It's 2:15_  
 _It's 2:15_  
 _It's 2:16_  
 _It's 2:16_  
 _It's 2:16_  
 _It's 2:15_  
 _It's 2:15 again_  
 _How can it be 2:15 again?_  
 _It's 2:16_  
 _Okay, It's 2:16_  
 _It's 2:17_  
 _It's 2:17_  
 _It's 2:17_  
 _How is it still 2:17?_  
 _Am I frozen it time?_  
 _Am I stuck in a wormhole?_  
 _Am I trapped in a dream?_  
 _It's 2:18_  
 _It's 2:18_  
 _It's not a dream_  
 _It's 2:18_

That one cracked him up because that was pretty much exactly how he'd felt every second he'd been in school. That could have been taken right out of the margins of one of his own notebooks, if he'd been a good enough student to even keep a notebook at all. And he really liked that. Liked knowing that they'd had that in common. That even though she'd been the good girl that had gotten good grades, she'd also felt trapped in a classroom sometimes.

Unlike him, though, she'd made an effort to hide it. Made a very dedicated effort to hide it. On one particularly bad day in chemistry, she hadn't taken any notes at all, but rather written two pages of stream-of-conscious nonsense just to keep her hand busy.

 _I'm not listening, I'm not listening, I'm not listening and you can't make me. Okay, that was mean, but I'm still not listening. I can't deal with you today, Mr. Percy. You're a good man, but I just can't deal with you today. So look at my hand move. Look at my head nod up and down. And please, please, please, don't call on me. Don't call on me. Don't call on me. I'm writing. See, I'm writing. Orange monkey jungle dance. Hedgehog bowling ball. Flurb. Flippity floppity flurb. Jackrabbit biscuit cutter._

 _Words, words, words. Words, words, words._

 _I'm paying such close attention and I'm writing down all your super important words. Corkscrew tap shoes. Sweet mushroom countertop. That's what you just said right? No? Maybe I need a hearing aid. Maybe I should see the school nurse. Can I see the school nurse? Trombone ice cream cones. They taste as good as they sound…_

That had gone on for ten paragraphs and he'd absolutely adored every single one. He'd loved that she'd apologized to her teacher and assured him of his good qualities even as she'd ignored him. Even as she'd written something that she'd prayed he'd never read. He'd loved all her ridiculous filler phrases that reminded him so much of her childhood drawings. If he hadn't had all of their titles memorized by now, he'd have easily believed that _Orange Monkey Jungle Dance_ had been one of six-year-old creations. He could practically see it in his head: an unidentifiable mess that would contain no orange and, probably, nothing that even remotely resembled an animal.

He'd read those pages five times and eventually took them out of the binder and added them to his dresser shrine right next to the notes on _Operation Vittles_. They didn't have the emotional weight of that other page, or of so many of the other objects he'd placed there, but they'd made him laugh and had felt so authentically _her_ that he just hadn't been willing to let them remain in that cold, plastic binder.

Unsurprisingly, given her obvious disinterest in the material, chemistry hadn't been her most successful subject. She had a few homework assignments and a handful of tests in the binder and they showed that she'd basically been a B minus student. At best. There were a fair amount of C's in there, too. And, while Daryl would have been lucky to get C's in school, he knew that - for Beth Greene - that had to have been as bad as it got. He'd flipped through the tests pretty quickly, since they'd been the very definition of dry, but he'd stopped on the last page of one of them when he'd seen something unusual. It was the all-too-familiar red X marking a failed question combined with the never-seen smiley face next to the incorrect answer.

 _19) A tenth of a mole of pennies contains how many pennies?_

 _What happened to the rest of the mole? And why are you asking me about pennies? We've got an injured animal on our hands, who can think of money at a time like this?_

He didn't understand the question at all, but he didn't think that hurt his appreciation of the joke. And, though she'd obviously been being silly, he'd thought there was something revealing about her comment, too. An unintentional window onto the incomparable compassion of Beth Greene. Because, kidding aside, she really had been the kind of girl who would think that money was no object when it came to an injured mole. They were ugly, destructive little animals with vicious claws and too big teeth that most people would consider pests, but he could easily picture Beth running to Herschel with 10% of a mole in her arms and begging him to save it. Telling him that she'd give her entire allowance if he'd only perform some kind of groundbreaking full-body mole transplant. Or sew the remnants of the creature onto a chipmunk and create the world's first molemunk.

If he's just do something, anything, to make the little guy live, she'd give him her last dime.

While she'd clearly struggled with chemistry, she'd excelled at a subject that he hadn't even known that she'd studied: French. Due to the nature of the material, her work in that class consisted mostly of worksheets and assignments - as opposed to the lectures that had dominated her other courses - and she'd gotten A's on them all. Going through her school work had been an almost entirely positive experience, but discovering that she'd spoken French - or, at least, some basic French - had made him briefly, but very genuinely, sad. He'd really wished that he'd been able to hear her say something in a language that he knew was widely considered to be one of the most beautiful. He'd never had that much familiarity with it - and it had definitely been years since he'd heard it spoken - so he hadn't been able to conjure up the general sounds in his head, but he knew that it was highly regarded. He knew that it was the language of love and romance and poetry. It was the language of art and elegance and culture. And, though that normally would have turned him off, it enchanted him when he associated it with her. It seemed entirely appropriate and he had to believe that that already beautiful language would have sounded even lovelier in her sweet voice.

And looking at her homework only further convinced him of that. He'd admired the beauty of all of her writing, but the words that she'd written in French had been especially captivating. Particularly gorgeous. Maybe it had been because he hadn't known what they'd meant and, therefore, had seen them solely from a graphic perspective. His eyes had been able glide across the loops and whirls of her hand without involving his brain at all. Those graceful lines had gone straight to his soul undiminished by thought. He'd been sure that it had been more than that, though. He'd been sure that they really would have been as beautiful to hear as they'd been to look at.

And it had broken a tiny piece of his heart to know that that would never happen.

Even though her French class had been conducted differently than the others, she'd still taken daily notes. And, as with her other subjects, those notes often had little comments in the margins. Unfortunately for Daryl, though, they'd all been in French and he'd had no idea if they'd been personal comments at all or if they'd just been afterthoughts that she hadn't been able to fit in anywhere else.

Every day, though, there had been one sentence written in English in the upper right hand corner of her notes. Or, really, a sentence fragment. Just strange little half-thoughts that he hadn't been able to understand.

 _like I need a nap._

 _awful and I want to go home._

 _so excited I can hardly stand it._

And on and on. Day after day. And before each odd phrase, she'd drawn a equally odd little symbol. It had looked like and upside-down Y with a horizontal line stretching across the middle part of what could be considered the V. He'd never seen anything like it before and had been completely baffled by it: unable to decode its meaning or the meaning of the weird half-sentences.

When he'd finally figured it out, he'd almost lost it. Not because it was funny, but because it was so _unbelievably_ dumb. Such an incredibly dorky little thing for her to do. The kind of thing that he would have found cringeworthy - or, at least, groan-inducing - with anyone else but somehow found charming with her.

The symbol had been her crude representation of the Eiffel Tower and all those little sentences had been her way of expressing her feelings for that day.

 _Eiffel like I need a nap._

 _Eiffel awful and I want to go home._

 _Eiffel so excited I can hardly stand it._

Just like he'd wished that he'd been able to hear her speak French, he'd wished that he'd been able to tease her about that joke. That joke that was so incredibly stupid and yet had clearly entertained her for months. It shouldn't have even been funny _once_ , but she'd found humor in that lame pun day after fucking day. And he would have loved to have teased her about that. Teased her about being so hopelessly - but so delightfully - goofy.

Because it would have been fun and, even more so, because it would have been a _really_ useful tool for him.

He'd always communicated best through jokes. Always felt more comfortable with banter and wisecrack than simple statements of truth, even when he was trying to be completely sincere. _Especially_ when he was trying to be completely sincere. And having a set-up for a joke that began with _I feel_ would have given him so many opportunities to express so many things that he wouldn't have been able to express any other way. That joke would have allowed him to talk about his feelings - his fucking _feelings_ \- which were something that he never wanted to talk about and something that she'd definitely deserved to know about. As dumb as it was - or maybe _because_ it was so dumb - that joke was tailor-made for Daryl Dixon and his clumsy efforts to connect with Beth Greene.

Staring at that symbol, he'd found himself thinking about their time in the woods. When he'd been working to build her hunting and tracking skills - training Private Greene for _Operation Vittles_ \- he'd taught her several hand signals so that they could communicate without scaring off any potential game. She'd really gotten a kick out of it, for reasons that he never fully understood but had always enjoyed, and had even come up with several signals of her own. Mostly for silly things that hadn't really needed to be communicated at all, but were just her way of staying in touch and having fun. Looking at her basic Eiffel Tower symbol, he'd thought about how easily they could have translated that into one of those hand signals. He'd just hold his hand in an upside-down peace sign and throw his opposing index finger over his knuckles. It'd look like an inverted A, but his arm would be the tower and she'd have known exactly what he'd meant.

And she would have loved it.

She would have loved having inspired her own signal, even if it was in the context of a tease. And he would have loved it because it would have felt like the best of them combined. This perfect combination of his skills - the thing that helped them stay alive - and her simple joy - the thing that made that life worth living. And it would have made the joke even _more_ useful to him - an even _easier_ set-up for communication - because he wouldn't even have had to say _I feel_. He could have just made the hand gesture, made her laugh, and then said the hard thing while she was still smiling.

He'd been able to see himself on one of their darker days, making that signal and telling her _like a failure_. He'd been able to see himself on one of their better days, making that signal and telling her _good right now_. He'd been able to see himself on one of his bolder - probably delusionally bolder- days, making that signal and telling her _lucky to be with you_.

 _happy when you smile._

 _good when you touch me._

 _like I'll die if I don't kiss you._

How much easier would all that have been? How much easier would it have been to speak in little fragments like that? To say everything without having to actually _say_ everything? To cut the tension out of any comment - good or bad - and to do it in a way that was _theirs_? In a way that emphasized their special bond? Their unique history and the unique life they shared?

It would have been _perfect_.

It would have been so perfect that he'd almost been grateful that his hand still hurt so much that he hadn't be able to try it. Hadn't been able to confirm just how good - just how right - it would have felt.

The most exciting subject by far, though, had been the last one he encountered and the one he'd had the highest hopes for. Back in his day, it had been referred to simply as _English_ , but he'd discovered that modern educators had apparently decided to call it _Language Arts_ instead. He'd thought that was totally pretentious but, in the case of Beth, actually pretty appropriate. She hadn't been using _English_ when she'd composed _The Ballad of the Sad Android_ : she'd been employing _Language Arts_.

 _Language Arts_ were responsible for _Orange Monkey Jungle Dance_ and _Fancy Raccoons Playing Potato Basketball_ and _Trombone Ice Cream Cones_.

That shit wasn't _English_.

He'd been looking forward to _Language Arts_ because he'd hoped that it would contain the longest uninterrupted samples of her handwriting and maybe, just maybe, examples of her actual _writing_. Actual compositions and stories and poems. Creative pieces that revealed something personal about her. He'd found a couple essays in her history binder, and a short one in French that he couldn't decipher, but they'd been explanatory works. They'd been her attempts to summarize and explain the Truman Doctrine and the impact of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They'd been purely academic pieces tied entirely to impersonal facts and had revealed nothing about her except that she'd understood the material and had good communications skills. They had been well-written and informative, but there had been nothing _Beth_ about them. And he'd hoped that _Language Arts_ would be different. That she'd have assignments that required her to put more of herself and her opinion on the page.

 _Language Arts_ had really been more like literary appreciation or reading comprehension, though. The focus hadn't been on creating her own works, but rather on analyzing the works of others. It had appeared that, for the most part, her class had spent their days reading short stories and then writing their own - even shorter - reflections on them. And, in their own way, those reflections had been interesting. But since he hadn't had access to the stories that inspired them, his appreciation of her commentaries had been severely limited. They'd almost felt like longer versions of her Eiffel Tower jokes before he'd decoded the symbol. The paragraphs had been free floating pieces of a puzzle that he hadn't been able to see. He'd been able to admire their colors and their shapes, but he hadn't been able to appreciate them on any meaningful level. Knowing that Beth thought that Annabelle saw the rusty bird cage as a metaphor for her marriage wasn't particularly illuminating when he didn't know who Annabelle was and why her marriage was so troubled.

Or why she had a rusty fucking bird cage to begin with.

But he'd tried - perhaps foolishly - to derive some insight from them nevertheless. To tell himself that Beth's response to the enigmatic Annabelle was still more revealing than her assessment of the Bay of Pigs. They might have only been a couple of paragraphs and they'd been read completely out of context but, in his mind, they'd at least demonstrated that - even at sixteen, even with the shining example of her own parents - she'd been sensitive to the challenges of marriage. Had been aware of how a woman might feel trapped in a relationship. Lock in to a commitment with a man who wasn't right for her. And that wasn't much, and it wasn't particularly surprising, but it was something. It was more than knowing that she'd understood the Domino Theory or had a shaky, but passable, grasp of parametric equations.

Though studying shorter works had clearly made up the bulk of the syllabus, her class had devoted several weeks to investigating one book in depth. And that book had formed the basis for Beth's longest single piece of writing in her entire school bag: a seven page essay that he'd assumed had been something like a term paper. He'd been surprised to see that she'd only got a B+ on it, but had been intrigued by the teacher's comment written at the top.

 _Some organizational problems, but overall a thoughtful analysis. Unexpected in places and that's always a nice surprise. Good job!_

Flipping through the pages, he'd seen that the teacher had been thorough in her evaluation and had made numerous notes throughout the paper: most of them positive, some of them challenging, and a few that were simple editorial corrections. And looking at that combination of Beth words and her teachers comments had felt like looking in on a conversation that he wasn't a part of.

A conversation that he wasn't a part of but very much _wanted_ to be a part of.

He'd wanted to know what Mrs. Palmer had found unexpected and whether he'd find it unexpected, too. He'd wanted to know what had prompted her to ask _But what about Caroline?_ next to paragraph three. Wanted to know if he'd have the same question and if he'd have an answer for Mrs. Palmer. Wanted to know if he could argue that _Beth_ had had an answer for Mrs. Palmer and that the question hadn't needed to be asked in the first place. Wanted to know if he could point to paragraph eleven and say, _See, that's what she thought of Caroline. Get it together, Palmer._

He'd had no idea who Caroline was though and he'd known that, even if he studied every word of Beth's seven pages, he never really would. He'd never be able to play a meaningful part of that conversation. The piece had been longer, and he'd probably be able to pick up more from it than he had with her other works, but the problem had still been the same. He hadn't known the source material, so he wouldn't be able to appreciate the commentary. He wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the way Beth's mind worked. The way she thought and felt and interpreted information.

That essay could have been such a wonderful window onto her beautiful mind, but the glass had been clouded by his ignorance.

And that had killed him. Killed him that he'd had this gift and that he'd only be able to enjoy it in such a shallow way. That Mrs. Palmer, who'd probably had a hundred students and surely never loved Beth Greene, had understood something about her - about her lovely little mind - that he didn't. That he _couldn't_. It had seemed so unfair that he'd just sat there for a few minutes and stared off into space: trying to calm himself down a bit so that, at the very least, he didn't read the essay in anger. If he couldn't appreciate the content, he'd reasoned, he needed to make sure that he appreciated the _experience_. That he read each word with happiness in his heart and with _Beth_ , not Mrs. Palmer, in his head.

It had turned out to be a wise move because, as he'd sat there, he'd glanced over at Beth's bookshelf and suddenly remembered seeing all those volumes that he'd been sure that she'd been assigned for school. The classics ones that he'd remembered from his own day and the ones he'd seen in so many other homes. The ones that didn't star the Loch Ness Monster or the chupacabra. He'd still felt fluish and achy but he'd forced himself to his feet and had been standing by the bookcase in record time. And it had been there. Right on the top shelf between _The Great Gatsby_ and _The Scarlet Letter_.

 _Pride and Prejudice._

Though he'd had no idea what the plot was about, he'd known from the beginning that it was a romance novel. It was famous enough that'd he'd heard of it and had known it was some kind of epic love story. One of those fancy British ones that they'd made movies about. Those grand period pieces where everyone wore gloves and elaborate costumes and rode around in horse-drawn carriages. The ones that they'd played on public television when they hadn't been airing cooking shows and the war documentaries that Merle had liked so much when he'd been tweaking.

The ones that had made Merle switch back to porn and had made Daryl okay with that choice, despite his fervent desire never to hear another plastic woman yell _Harder, Daddy!_ ever again.

It hadn't mattered, though. In an ideal world, he would have rather read her thoughts on the chupacabra, but he was so far from living in an ideal world that that notion hadn't even entered his mind. He hadn't considered how nice it might have been for the book to be something other than, quite possibly, one of the last books in the world he'd want to read. He'd been too caught up in the prospect of sharing an experience with Beth to care.

Because that was the thing: reading that book and then reading her paper was the closest he was ever going to come to doing something _with_ Beth again. He was going to read the same words that she'd read. The story that had lived in her mind was going to live in his mind, too. The world that existed between the covers of that book was going to be a world that he and Beth had walked through together. A world that they'd seen and studied and shared. And Beth was going to tell him what she'd thought about that world. She was going to speak to him through that essay and tell him about the journey. About what she'd discovered and what she'd wondered about along the way. And, if history was any indication, her thoughts would influence his. He'd see that world differently through her eyes. She'd change his perspective or make him notice something he'd never noticed before. She couldn't initiate a conversation anymore, but that essay gave him the opportunity to insert himself into one that had already happened. To turn back the clock and have one final discussion with Beth.

And if the subject of that discussion had to be a romance novel, he couldn't give a fucking shit.

He'd spent the whole day going through her school work - or what was, to him, the whole day as he was still tiring out by early evening - and had decided to put off reading the book until the following morning. To start fresh when he was at his most alert and could pay the closest attention. When his eyes weren't strained from reading all day and his head wasn't throbbing from the subsequent headache. So, he'd said goodnight to her as usual - throwing in an _Eiffel like shit and it's time for bed_ just for fun - and headed to his room.

Lying in bed that night, he'd imagined sitting in her room the next day - cross-legged in his new favorite perch under the open window - and reading that book. He'd been looking forward to it and had gotten even more excited when he'd realized that there was another point of connection that he hadn't considered before: she'd probably read that book in her room, too. Their minds weren't just going to be in the same fictitious world, their bodies were going to be in the same real world when it happened. They were going to share the same mental _and_ physical space. His sleepy and still mildly feverish mind had become obsessed with that idea and he'd decided that he wanted the similarities of their experiences to be as close as possible.

He'd tried to picture her reading the book and the first thing he'd been sure of was that she hadn't sat cross-legged under her open window when she'd done it. It wasn't a comfortable place to be at all and he'd only chosen it because he was still running hot and liked the breeze and because it was better than the desk, which got even more uncomfortable after awhile. The antique wooden chair was an ergonomic nightmare and he'd only sat there for so long - for all the weeks he'd been in her room - because his other options hadn't really felt like options at all. There was her upholstered chair with the pretty pattern of birds in flight, but that was the home of her stuffed animals and he couldn't bring himself to move them. Couldn't disturb her display. And then there was her bed.

Her bed.

It had always felt completely off-limits, too, but as he'd lay there in that twilight state between sleep and waking it had stopped seeming so untouchable. Because, the more he'd tried to picture it, the more he'd come to believe that that's where she'd read the book. That she'd curled up in that big, beautiful bed of hers and lost herself in a tale of love and courtship. The part of his mind that was still thinking logically believed it because it truly did make the most sense. She would have wanted to be comfortable and there was no denying that her bed was the most comfortable place in her room. But, even though it was logical, that wasn't _why_ he believed it. He believed it simply because he knew her and because he'd felt it in his heart.

She'd read that book in her bed.

She'd read that book in her bed and he was going to read that book in her bed, too.

Though his hand still hurt something fierce, the swelling had gone down enough that he finally had enough dexterity that he'd felt like he could risk taking off his shoes. He'd be able to re-tie them again if he had to and wouldn't be caught sick and barefoot. He could finally take off his shoes and those godforsaken pants and take a far too cold, but desperately, needed shower. He could wash all the sweat and the sickness and the apocalypse off of his body. He could put on clean clothes and fresh socks.

And he could lie down on her bed - as unspoiled as he was capable of being - and imagine her lying beside him.

Imagine them getting lost in the same book on a lazy afternoon. Imagine her gasping at something exciting and asking if he'd got to chapter four yet. Imagine playfully slapping her hip and telling her not to tease the slow-reading redneck. Imagine finally getting to chapter four and finding out why she'd gasped. Imagine looking forward to discussing to with her later and knowing - _knowing_ \- that, on some level, he could. He would. He actually fucking _would_ because he had that essay.

He'd lie in the bed where, years ago, she'd done the same and, in that way, they'd be together.

Separated by nothing but time.

So, that's exactly what he'd done. He'd gotten up the next morning and gotten naked. It wouldn't normally have been his favorite thing to do, but after roasting in the same sweat-soaked pants for days - pants that had been dirty long before his accident - it had felt glorious. As had the shower that followed. He'd expected it to make him feel cleaner, of course, but it had also made him feel _healthier_. Like he really had rinsed some of the infection away. Like he'd finally gotten rid of that sheen of sickness that he'd been wearing like a second skin for almost a week.

He'd felt so good afterwards, so refreshed, that he'd actually considered not putting his own clothes back on. He had a few things that had been washed, but none of them were truly clean and he'd been tempted to grab a pair of Shawn's too-tight sweat pants or Herschel's too-big pajama bottoms instead. Something without stains or holes or embedded dirt. Something that had never had brains or blood or intestines on it.

Something that belonged in that house and in that room and in that bed.

But those things hadn't belonged on Daryl Dixon, though. They hadn't been his. And he'd wanted it to be _him_ in her bed. In his mind, he'd been about to cross a huge threshold. Make a giant leap in intimacy. And he hadn't wanted to do that cloaked in another man's garb. He hadn't wanted to do that dressed like her brother or her father. When she'd been alive, he'd spent the entire time that he'd loved her wearing that costume: posing as a man whose feelings had been purely familial. And he was beyond that fiction now. He was beyond pretending. He was Daryl Dixon and he loved Beth Greene and, even though this hadn't been at all how he'd dreamed of coming to her bed or what he'd planned on doing once he was there, he'd wanted to at least enjoy the honesty - the pure and beautiful truth - of that.

And _because_ he was Daryl Dixon and he loved Beth Greene, he wouldn't feel like he was close enough to her simply by being in her room. Lying in her bed in sweatpants or pajama bottoms would still be too much distance because he wouldn't be able to have her knife on him. He'd have her dog tags, but that wouldn't be enough. He needed the knife. It had been hard enough going those past few days without her picture in his breast pocket. Even with the aspirin, he'd still been too feverish to wear a shirt and he'd felt a sense of panic every time his hand had unconsciously reached for his chest and hit skin instead of cloth. Every time he didn't feel that precious plastic rectangle, his heart would start to race under his anxious palm. Because he really felt like he _needed_ those totems of her. Her knife and her picture and her dog tags. He _needed_ those things on him. He'd temporarily sacrificed the photo, but he hadn't been able to handle parting with any more.

So, he'd put on his own pants - her knife securely at his hip - and headed towards her room. For the first time since he'd taken ill, he'd been grateful for his fever. Grateful he was still so warm that he wasn't tempted to crawl under the quilt. To truly climb into the bed and cocoon himself in her. That had still felt like it would be too much: too much intimacy to force upon her and too much disruption to make to the room that was now her shrine. It hadn't felt like it would be right. But, fortunately, it hadn't felt like it would be _accurate_ either. He'd imagined that she'd probably lied on top of the covers when she'd read the book, too. It had been homework, after all, and she probably hadn't done it late into the night. She'd probably read it after school or on a Saturday afternoon after she'd already gotten dressed and made the bed. And that was the whole point. Or, at least, the point that had allowed him to justify the action.

To replicate her experience.

He'd sat down on the bed tentatively, but it had felt so unbelievably good - so deeply soothing - that he'd found himself on his back before he'd even had a chance to think about it. This big, huge, scary step and he'd taken it without any deliberation. His body had just taken over -silencing his ever-racing mind - and made the decision for him. And, though he often had doubts about his own intelligence, he'd had to admit: his body was smart as hell. His body had known what it was doing. Because if he'd thought sitting on her bed had felt good, lying on it had felt so much better.

So. Much. Better.

He hadn't been able to tell whether it was truly just an incredibly comfortable mattress or whether it was the connection to her that it provided, but he'd felt better lying on that bed than he'd felt since he'd laid in that fucking coffin listening to her serenade him. He might have a had a few _happier_ moments here and there - seeing Beth's photo for the first time, finding Stopsign's antibiotics, watching that DVD - but on a purely physical level, he'd thought that he hadn't felt that good in almost a year.

Infection be damned.

Though he'd known that he wouldn't succeed, he hadn't been able to stop himself from turning his head and briefly burying his nose in her pillow: trying to see if he could detect any of her scent on the fabric. It hadn't been there, of course. It had smelled like nothing really, but in a world that was covered with the stench of rot and decay, even nothing had seemed special. It had highlighted, once again, how this magical little place had been untouched by the nightmare outside.

How this magical little place was its own kind of dream.

And he'd let himself get lost in that dream for a while. Just lying there, staring at her ceiling, and thinking about all those years that she'd done the same. When he'd been thinking anything at all, that is. When he hadn't just been floating in a sea of sensation: just letting himself feel and breathe and _be_. But after a few minutes, or maybe more, he'd picked up the book and started reading. And from the opening line, he'd been sure that he was fucked.

 _It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife._

It was about a rich guy. In retrospect, he hadn't been surprised. He imagined that romantic heroes were probably rarely poor. Poverty's not exactly sexy and it's certainly no one's fantasy. Still, he'd been disappointed that the male lead was wealthy. Probably some fucking Lord or Duke or some shit. Even though he'd had no expectations for actually enjoying the book, he'd been hoping that he might be able to pretend that it was about him and Beth. That he might be able to see something of them in the characters and imagine it as some bizarre British version of the relationship they'd never had. That opening line had seemed to dash those hopes, though. If it had been about a stable boy or a blacksmith or something, maybe he'd have had a shot, but no Dixon had ever been _a_ _man in possession of a good fortune_.

No Dixon had ever even known _a man in possession of a good fortune_.

Still, he'd found the book so boring at first that he hadn't been able to stop himself from drawing parallels between the people populating the world of Jane Austen and the people he knew from his own life. Parallels between him and the impossibly rich hero named Darcy. Parallels between Beth and the impossibly charming heroine conveniently named Elizabeth. And parallels between all the secondary characters that filled out their lives. And that had kept him entertained for awhile. Or, at least, it had helped keep him engaged. Despite what most people would imagine, he actually did like to read but he almost never read _fiction_. The characters never really came to life for him and he'd found that that problem was especially acute when trying to connect with characters from another country, in another century, in another world. But imagining them as people he knew had helped flesh them out more and added a bit of interest to an otherwise tedious tale.

He'd cast Glenn in the role of the ever affable Charles Bingley: a light-hearted man and loyal friend who was a model of kindness and decency. Glenn had more depth and was less naive than Bingley, but beggars couldn't be choosers and the salient point was that he was the novel's unquestionably good guy. He'd cast Father Gabriel as the loathsome clergyman Mr. Collins: a man supposedly guided by the word of God but who was really driven by his own self-interest. That one had been unfair to the fictitious Mr. Collins, though, because - while he might have been a perv towards his cousin and willing to kick his own family out of their ancestral home - he hadn't let dozens of innocent people die simply because he was too big of a pussy to unlock a door. He'd cast an even more loathsome person in an even more loathsome role and envisioned Shane as Officer WIckham: the consummate liar who'd betrayed the man who had been like a brother to him and tried to seduce his teenage sister for her fortune and petty revenge. That one had seemed _perfectly_ fair and had made him pretty happy. And, when he'd finally found out who she was, he'd delightedly cast Lori as the bitchy Caroline Bingley: the thoroughly useless and completely self-satisfied drama queen who thought she was the elite center of the universe and prided herself on her ability to draw male attention.

That one had made him even happier than the Wickham one had.

He'd felt like everyone in his family had basically accepted him after a while, but he'd felt like Lori had looked down on him until the day she'd died. She'd rarely done anything overt about it - and at times had even been painfully sociable - but he'd known that the sheriff's wife and soccer mom had never stopped seeing him as the kind of lowlife redneck who her husband should have been arresting, not looking to for advice.

So when Caroline mocked Elizabeth for having her most impressive relation be a mere attorney from the obviously low-rent community of Cheapside, he'd had to grin because he'd been able to so clearly recall Lori's reaction when he'd told her the name of the infamously white trash town where he was from. A place he could only assume was the Georgian equivalent of Cheapside. A place Jane Austen would have very aptly named _Scumtown_ or _Hickville_ or _Dirtbag Junction_. (Or _Dirtbagshire_ , as the case may be.) He hadn't thought about that in years, but he'd been able to remember her politely veiled disgust so vividly. Disgust and odd satisfaction. Satisfaction because he'd proven her right. Proven that he really was the kind of man that she'd suspected all along. He'd have never made the comparison at the time, but it was entirely accurate: she'd looked just like a stuffy British lady in a fancy drawing room turning up her nose at the lowly commoner who'd become her unfortunate houseguest.

She'd looked just like Caroline Bingley.

And when, in the same scene, Charles admonished Caroline for the insult and told her that, even if Elizabeth had enough relatives to populate all of Cheapside, it wouldn't have made her _one jot less agreeable_ , he'd known that he'd cast Glenn correctly in that role, too. Glenn might not have know what to make of him at first, might not have known exactly how to relate to him, but he'd never considered Daryl _beneath_ him. He'd never looked down on him. They'd had different backgrounds and Glenn had been aware of those differences, but he'd never judged him for them. Never acted like it made him _one jot less agreeable_.

His _personality_ might have made him _many_ jots less agreeable at times, but - to Glenn - his background had never been a factor.

He'd quickly given up any idea of casting Beth as Elizabeth, though, despite his initial desire to do so and their seeming similarities. Elizabeth was portrayed as a delightful and charming young woman - a smart and witty and beautiful girl who was so special and captivating that she'd made a one of the richest men in England fall to his knees and throw aside all social convention to be with her - and that would have been a description he'd more than happily have applied to his girl. But, reading between the lines, he hadn't felt like it had actually applied to _Elizabeth_ that much at all. He hadn't seen her that way everyone else apparently did. He'd thought that she was petty and stupid and inconsiderate. She could be vain and rude and judgmental in a way that Beth never would and, while she clearly wasn't a bad person at heart, he didn't think she was all that great of a person, either.

He'd actually seen a little bit more of Beth in Elizabeth's sister Jane. The sweet and gentle girl who saw the good in everyone, wanted the best for everyone, and fought hard against any feelings of self-pity. But that had been unsatisfying, too. Both because Jane was a relatively minor character and because, in addition to being incredibly good, she was also incredibly dull. She didn't have much of a spark to her at all and, ultimately, seemed pretty shallow: supposedly falling desperately in love with a man who she'd only had a handful of polite conversations with. (And that man happened to be Charles Bingley, who in his mind had been Glenn, so that comparison had additional problems that had made it unacceptable.)

So, casting Beth in the book had been a failure, but he'd realized after awhile that he probably should have expected that. Jane Austen might have been considered a literary giant, but even her fancy British brain couldn't dream up a character as good as Beth Greene. He didn't think that any author could. Any comparisons that he'd tried to make with the many women in the novel - every major and minor role - couldn't come close to doing her justice, so he'd abandoned that pursuit early on: considering it flawed in principle.

Beth was too good to be true _and_ she was too good to be fiction.

After getting past his wealth and good looks, however, he'd had a bit more success in seeing himself in Darcy. He couldn't relate to his privilege or to his pride - that great character flaw that inspired his half of the title - but he could relate to some of the problems that resulted from them. To his sense of isolation and his social awkwardness. And, when he'd described the harshness of his disposition, Daryl had been able to relate to that quite easily, too.

 _"My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding - certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost forever."_

Some of those traits had softened a bit over time - largely due to Beth's influence -but for the most part it was all still profoundly true. He had a terrible temper. He could be unforgiving of other people's faults and failures. And he definitely didn't respond well to compliments or flattery. He wasn't moved by people's efforts to sway his feelings through puffery and praise. And if resentment had a face, it'd be the surly mug of Daryl Dixon. The weight of the bow that he kept slung over his shoulder was balanced out by the massive chip that he kept firmly in place on the other. Though the nature of their grudges had been different, he and Darcy definitely bore them in common.

But more than anything, he'd been able to relate to how Darcy had felt about Elizabeth. He might not have understood her appeal, but he'd understood how Darcy had felt wanting someone who he'd thought that he shouldn't. How he'd been twisted up by a love that he'd felt was inappropriate. He'd worried that Elizabeth was beneath him socially, while Daryl had feared just the opposite. That his Beth was too good for him. Too good for him and far too young. But, while the root of the two men's concerns had been different, it was clear that the way it had affected them had been the same.

Those similarities had been so painfully obvious that he'd noticed them from the start. Considering it was a classic, he'd been expecting the novel to be a challenging read, but - in truth - it was incredibly straightforward and required very little analysis. He hadn't needed any literary skills to interpret the short, but powerful, little sentence that so accurately captured their shared predicament. One simple little sentence describing Darcy's feelings towards Elizabeth near the beginning of the book that had struck him as such a perfect summation of his feelings towards Beth at the beginning of his own romantic journey with her.

 _She attracted him more than he liked._

It hadn't been a complex thought, but it hadn't been a complex truth, either. It had been a very basic truth that had been his reality for months. Months and months when he'd wished that he hadn't wanted her as much as he had. Months and months when he'd hoped that his attraction would flame itself out - would fade and be forgotten - only to find it burning brighter every day. That had been his reality for so long and was _still_ his reality, in a way. Because, if he'd been less attracted to her, maybe her loss would be a little easier to handle. Just a tiny bit easier to take.

Maybe that wouldn't have been the first day he'd lied down on her bed.

 _She attracted him more than he liked._

He'd been able to relate so strongly to harboring an unwanted attraction and he'd been able to relate to how Darcy had dealt with that unwanted attraction, too. How he'd tried to talk himself out of it and tried to hide it and done whatever he could to make sure his Elizabeth didn't notice. Though there was nothing humorous about the passage, one paragraph describing Darcy's avoidant behavior had actually made him laugh out loud.

 _He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should now escape him...Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke ten words to her through the whole of Saturday, and though they were at one time left by themselves for half an hour, he adhered most conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her._

He'd thought that was so funny because it was such a painfully accurate reflection of his own actions. Once he'd discovered just how strongly he felt about Beth, he'd gone out of his way - sometimes comically and sometime almost cruelly out of his way - to make sure _that no sign of admiration should now escape him_. And the part about speaking ten words to her in a day had been, at times, completely true, too. Both because he'd generally never been much of a talker and because, like Darcy, he'd been afraid that if he'd spoken too much, he'd have given it all away.

He'd have accidentally tipped his hand.

Those hadn't been the parts that had really gotten to him, though. What had killed him had been the part about Darcy burying his head in a book and refusing to look at her. That part had struck such a hilarious and mortifying chord with Daryl because he really _had_ done that.

He really had done that very thing.

 _Exactly._

It had probably been a month or so after he'd realized that he wanted her and they'd been in the middle of an unseasonable heat wave. He'd pulled the night shift on watch and, since it had been too hot to hunt, he'd taken the afternoon off and snuck off to the prison library: which was located in the center of the building and, therefore, one of the coolest rooms in the place. He'd been lying on the couch trying to read an exceedingly dull book about the Civil War when Beth had walked in unexpectedly. He'd been facing the door and had looked up instinctively upon her arrival and, when he'd seen her, he'd been momentarily stunned. She'd been wearing shorts - which he'd almost never seen her in - and a tight tank top that was clinging to her sweat-slickened skin.

So _much_ sweat-slickened skin.

He'd never seen that much skin on her. Never seen her so bare. Not since he'd cared, anyway. Not since it had become the kind of sight that would make his heart race and leave him absolutely frozen in place. She'd greeted him with a big smile and asked him how he was doing, but he hadn't been able to handle looking at her, let alone talking to her, so he'd just grunted and turned his eyes immediately back to the book.

And that's where they'd stayed for the rest of her time there.

Which, he'd had to admit with another self-deprecating snicker, had been for more than half an hour.

Apparently, he was even more stubborn than Darcy, because he'd probably ignored Beth - probably pretended like the fall of Savannah was more interesting than the prettiest girl in Georgia - for _well over_ an hour that day. And she'd even tried to engage him, too. Good old Jane didn't mention whether Elizabeth had done that, but _his_ Beth certainly had. She'd asked him if he was enjoying his book, asked him how things had gone on watch, and made a few other comments throughout their time together. And he'd given her a handful of grunts and a couple one word answers in return, but he'd never _once_ looked at her. He'd _adhered most conscientiously to his book_ 'd kept his eyes glued to the volume that he'd barely been reading and certainly hadn't been paying any attention to. Because he'd known that if he'd looked at her, if his eyes had locked in on all that beautiful glowing skin, he'd have been fucked. There would have been no way that he could have hidden his interest in her, so he'd just ignored her completely instead.

 _Steady to his purpose_ , as Ms. Austen would say.

Unlike Daryl, though, Darcy had eventually worked up the balls to lift his eyes from the book and propose to his Elizabeth. And the result had been a disaster that Daryl had also been able to relate to. Always the poor communicator, Darcy had made a mess of the entire situation and, in revealing his concerns about her background, had ended up seriously insulting his would-be-bride rather than winning her hand. Elizabeth had insulted him in return and Darcy's response to the attack had read like a transcript of a long regretted conversation that he'd once had with his Beth. A conversation they'd had in the guise of a drinking game in which she'd asked him, with an innocence he hadn't been able to recognize at the time, whether he'd ever been in prison. She hadn't meant it as an insult, but he'd taken it as one. As deep of an assault on his character as the accusations that Elizabeth had leveled against Darcy during his botched proposal. And his response to it had been almost exactly the same.

 _"And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, "is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! "_

The only difference was that Darcy would come to regret everything _leading up_ to that moment and Daryl would regret everything that came _after_. Because Darcy had had the good sense to storm out of the room alone and Daryl hadn't. He'd grabbed Beth and pulled her outside with him, thrown his arm around her throat in an act of physical aggression that would always haunt him and made a gruesome game of target practice with a walker. But that hadn't been the worst of it. While Darcy had insulted Elizabeth's low-breeding and family connections - those social obstacles that'd he'd been casting aside in order to propose - Daryl had gone straight for the jugular and attacked Beth _personally_ for no purpose other than to wound her. To make her hurt like he'd hurt. He'd accused her of caring more about getting drunk than about the loss of her family, compared her to a _dumb college bitch_ , insisted that her sister was dead and implied that she was being an idiot for believing that she'd ever see her again.

The sister who was very much alive and had been a better friend to Daryl than he'd ever imagined. The sister who had stopped herself from asking him if he'd been in love with Beth because she'd known that it would have pained him to answer and had been kind enough to spare him that hurt. The sister who had agreed that her husband should give up his only picture of her - and _her_ only picture of her sister - so that he could have it instead. So that he could have a photo of the woman he loved. A photo that was and would always be his most cherished possession. The sister who had shared a bottle of off-brand vodka and rehashed old prison stories with him on his last night in Alexandria and who had been the last human being that he'd spoken to. The sister who, given the fragility of life those days, might be the last human being that he ever spoke to and the last friendly _living_ face that he ever saw again.

Yeah, that sister.

That dead, dead sister.

Telling the woman you loved that you failed to _rejoice in the inferiority of her connections_ and had reservations about aligning yourself with a family _whose condition in life was so decidedly beneath_ your own was a pretty bad way to kickoff a marriage, but as far as Daryl was concerned his behavior towards Beth at the moonshine shack had been far worse than Darcy's failed professions of love. The guy had been a dick to be sure, but Daryl had been _trying_ to be a dick and that was a meaningful and deeply shameful distinction.

Darcy's treatment of Elizabeth had still been uncalled for, though. And, because it was fiction, he'd been given the opportunity to atone. To apologize and to try to make it right. And, also because it was fiction, it was an opportunity that - unlike Daryl - he'd decided to take. He'd been strong enough and bold enough and brave enough to do the hard thing and put his heart on the line. Propose to her again and express his regret.

And, with the afternoon winding down, Daryl was finally getting to that part of the book. Finally getting to those last few scenes where the flawed hero corrects his mistakes and gets the girl. Those presumably rewarding scenes where the audience earns their _happily-ever-after_. And, as he read Darcy explain how he'd been affected by his memories of his first failed attempt to win Elizabeth's hand, he thought that he could have said the exact same thing about his treatment of Beth that day at the shack.

 _"The recollection of what I then said - of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it - is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me."_

That was so _fucking_ true. That day haunted him - had haunted him for months -and he wished so badly that he'd apologized to her for it. Apologized to her that day or on any of the other days that had followed. Because, even though his life wasn't fiction and he wasn't going to get his _happily-ever-after_ , he _had_ had plenty of opportunities to express his remorse. He'd had plenty of opportunities and he hadn't taken a single one. Because she'd forgiven him without a word. She'd hugged him and she'd forgiven him and he'd known - _known_ \- that she'd known that he'd been sorry. And he'd allowed that to be enough. He'd allowed that unspoken apology to suffice and taken advantage of her goodwill. And that truly haunted him because manhandling her like that and calling her a name like that had been so horribly reminiscent of Will Dixon's treatment of women - had been such a small, but terrifying, glimpse of everything that he'd never wanted to be - that it really had been _inexpressibly painful_ to him.

And, unfortunately, that hadn't been the only time his _conduct_ , _manners_ , and _expressions_ towards the woman he loved had been regrettable. The incident at the moonshine shack hadn't been the only thing that he had to apologize to her for. Hadn't been the only thing that was _inexpressibly painful_ to him about his behavior during their relationship. And he couldn't help thinking about that. Thinking about all those conversations that he'd wished that he'd done differently. All the different changes that he'd wished that he'd had made to his _conduct_ , _manners_ , and _expressions_. He dutifully continued to read as Elizabeth's family celebrated the delightful news of their daughter's engagement, but half of his mind was occupied by all those other regrettable exchanges.

Or, really, by the most regrettable exchange of them all. The _inexpressibly painful_ recollection that was defined not by the regrettable things that he _had_ said, but by the regrettable things that he _hadn't_. Their final night together in the funeral home kitchen. That doomed night when they'd shared their last dinner and when his commitment to hiding his feelings - his panicked insistence _that no sign of admiration should now escape him_ \- had made him avoid her question about the existence of good people and sent him running towards that fucking door.

His mind was in two different worlds as he read those final chapters, but when he got to one of the last conversations between the lovestruck couple, those worlds collided. Elizabeth brought up a small gathering at which Darcy had basically ignored her and his explanation for his behavior perfectly captured Daryl's problem that fateful meal.

 _"You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner."_

 _"A man who had felt less, might."_

The simplicity and honesty of that response floored him. Brought completely unexpected tears to his eyes. He couldn't believe that he was almost crying over a fucking romance novel, but that line went straight to his soul. Hit him right where he lived and loved and mourned. Because that had been his greatest obstacle to treating her right: he'd felt more than he'd been able to handle, more than he'd known what to do with, more than he'd ever felt before. And all those feelings had paralyzed him. They'd stilled his already reticent tongue. They'd left him unable to speak and, even worse, had sometimes made him speak in ways that he shouldn't have. To say things that should have never been said at all.

He'd known that already, of course. Darcy's response hadn't offered him any new insight, but it had made it seem like a _legitimate_ explanation. Like something that made sense and that normal men - even _better_ than normal men, even _heroes_ in fucking romance novels - also struggled with. Though he'd thought little of the actual book, he knew that it wasn't trash. It was a beloved classic that was taught in schools and made into movies that played on public television. Darcy and Elizabeth were a fantasy couple who had entertained audiences for two hundred years. This man - this man who felt too much to talk to the woman he loved, this man who'd spoken to her insultingly when he _had_ talked to her because he'd been too shitty of a communicator to do better - was fucking _loved_ by generations of readers.

And that kind of blew his mind.

When Darcy said _a man who had felt less, might_ , Elizabeth's response hadn't been _well, a real man would have_ or _a man who had truly loved me would have_. No, her response had been one of complete understanding and her own supposedly endearing brand of acceptance.

 _"How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it!"_

Reasonable.

Jane Austen - who he could only picture as a classy lady covered in lace and obsessed with proper English etiquette and the rules of decorum - had thought that that shit was _reasonable_. And, underneath that horrid watercolor on the cover, the publisher had proudly proclaimed that the novel had _More Than 20 Million Copies Sold_. So, even if most of those people had thought it was bullshit, that still meant millions of people had thought that it was reasonable, too. Millions of people had accepted that explanation and loved Darcy anyway. Loved him and Elizabeth and envied the untold story that followed the novel's concluding chapter: that _happily-ever-after_ when the perfect couple enjoyed their _domestic felicity_.

And he was really surprised by how much that knowledge affected him. Was surprised that it even affected him _at all_. He thought that most people were idiots and, while he'd found a way to make it interesting and taken some personal meaning from it, he hadn't thought that the book had really been any good. He didn't walk away from the experience thinking that Jane Austen had been some great artist or that she'd had any particular insight into human nature. So her opinion on what constituted acceptable behavior shouldn't have meant anything to him. And the opinions of her readers - many of whom had been the kind of people who'd looked at that horrid watercolor on the cover and gotten excited about the gooey delights that laid beneath it - shouldn't have meant anything to him, either. If he thought that most people were idiots, he definitely thought that _those_ people were some of the biggest idiots of the bunch.

None of it should have mattered at all, but it did. For reasons that he couldn't understand, it did. It mattered that Darcy's inability to talk had stemmed from an abundance of feeling and it mattered that people had considered that reasonable.

That _Elizabeth_ had considered that reasonable.

Because, even though he in no way saw her as his Beth, he firmly believed that that would have been her response, too. If he'd explained that his emotions were stifling his speech - without any more detail than Darcy had provided in those seven simple words - she'd have just smiled and laughed. Not a laugh of mockery, but a laugh of realization. A laugh that revealed her happiness with finally understanding the source of the problem and her relief that it hadn't been anything she'd consider serious. Anything negative or worrisome or wrong. A laugh that said _You mean that's it? That's all that's bothering you?_

A laugh that said _You're ridiculous, Daryl. What could you possibly have to fear?_

And because she'd been a talker, and because she'd have known that he'd have needed to hear it, she wouldn't have just let her laugh speak for her. She would have made it clear. She would have reassured him and told him it was okay. She would have told him that he didn't ever have to talk if he didn't want to. She would have told him that she _wanted_ him to want to, though, and that'd she'd listen to anything he had to say.

She would have understood.

Just like Jane Austen and Elizabeth and, apparently, millions of people around the world.

She would have understood.

With the newly minted Mr. and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy happily in love, Daryl closed the book and imagined how it all could have played out. He brought his right hand up to his chest to rest on her dog tags and, remembering going through her French notes notes the previous day, he imagined how it all could have unfolded between _them_.

Not between Mr. Darcy and Ms. Bennett, but between Master Dixon and Private Greene.

He imagined them together at some point after the prison. At some point on _Operation Vittles_ when he'd been too overwhelmed by his own emotions to speak. Or, at least, to speak properly. To say the things that he'd really wanted to say or that he'd needed to say or that, in retrospect, he knew that she'd deserved to hear. Maybe even that night at the shack. Maybe that night on the porch after his temper had cooled and she'd silently forgiven him. When they'd just been enjoying the buzz of the moonshine and the soft breeze of the night.

He imagined looking over at her and making that Eiffel Tower hand gesture - that signal that would look like nothing more than an A to anyone else, but would mean so much more to them - and simply saying _too much_. He wouldn't have even needed Darcy's seven words. He'd always been efficient and he could have done it in two. Just that little gesture - that move that would have been solely theirs - and those two little words.

 _too much._

I feel too much.

And she would have understood. She would have understood what he meant and she would have understood what he was doing. She would have known that he was trying to have a conversation that he wasn't equipped to have. She would have known that he was struggling and that, as usual, he was relying on his hands on his humor to get him through it.

And she wouldn't have just understood it, she would have _loved_ it.

She would have thrown herself into it with the same enthusiasm that she'd always brought to _Operation Vittles_. She would have seen it as a game - in the best and purest sense - and she would have responded in kind. It would have be _Operation Eiffel_ to her and it could have been the most honest conversation they'd ever had.

And, knowing her, maybe one of the funnest, too.

All conducted in half-sentences that no one else would have understood. It would have been personal in every way because it would have been in their own little code. An indecipherable dialogue that would have seemed like gibberish to anyone else, but would have been so meaningful to them.

He imagined making that gesture that night and saying _too much_ and when he really thought about it - when he ran through all her possible responses - he could only imagine her making the gesture and saying _too much, too_. She'd had a long history of saying things that surprised him but, in that particular instance, he couldn't picture her saying anything else.

 _too much, too._

I feel too much, too.

Because it would have been as true for her as it had been for him. Not for the same reasons. He didn't think for a second that her excessive emotions would have been tied up in her feelings for him. But she had to have been feeling too much that night, too. In a week when she'd witnessed her father be decapitated, when she'd lost her home, when she'd been separated from her sister and almost everyone she knew, when she'd been assaulted and yelled at by the only person left in her life - the person who she relied on for her very survival in a very real way - and when she'd been drunk for the very first time in her sweet little life, she had to have been feeling too _goddamn_ much, too.

And he imagined the whole half-conversation unfolding. Imagined their hands dancing and their eyes locking, and probably occasionally darting away, as they sat on the porch and half-talked about everything that was happening. As he tried to half-explain himself and she tried to fully relieve him. Every sentence beginning with a unspoken _I feel..._

 _too much._

too much, too.

 _terrible 'bout what happened._

like it's all in the past.

 _like you shouldn't be forgivin' me._

like you're easy to forgive.

 _like you're gonna be scared of me now._

more scared of that ashtray. That thing gives me the creeps.

 _like a human version of that ashtray._

surprised you identify with the pink.

 _like green would be more my color, but the point's the fuckin' same._

like the point's fucking stupid.

 _like you've had too much to drink if you're talkin' like that._

confident you're the bad influence.

 _sure you're right._

positive an ashtray never influenced me. So I guess you can't be one. Trapped you in my web of words, Mr. Dixon.

 _more trapped in this fuckin' shack than in your wicked web of words, girl._

like this shack is kinda nice.

 _like this shack is fuckin' poison. This place is fucked._

like we should burn it down then.

 _like I didn't hear your drunk ass right._

LIKE WE SHOULD BURN IT DOWN THEN.

 _like we're gonna need more booze._

He spent a good half an hour going through potential script after script. Considering all the different ways that half-conversation could have been half-written. All of them beginning with _too much_ and ending with _like we're gonna need more booze_ : their own twisted apocalypse version of _and they lived happily ever after_. His mind was firmly engaged in his own fictitious life, but some part of him obviously still had _Pride and Prejudice_ on the brain, though. When running through one of those fantasy conversations, he had to laugh when he unexpectedly imagined himself saying _worse than Wickham_ : the scumbag scoundrel whose dastardly acts had formed the basis for the novel's central drama and threatened everyone's happiness. It cracked him up not because it was funny, but because it would have absolutely shocked her to hear him make a _Pride and Prejudice_ reference. He could just picture the look on her face when he busted that out of nowhere. And he could picture the fun he could have had by acting like her shock was surprising to _him_. Like he was a huge Jane Austen fan and that he read those kind of books all the time. Like anyone who would look at him would know that. Like it was obvious.

He liked hunting and motorcycles and nineteenth century romance novels. Just like every other red-blooded redneck.

Didn't she get him at all?

She probably would have apologized for assuming otherwise and he would have found her undoubted sincerity adorable. It would have been crazy for her to believe that he'd ever read that book because he absolutely never _would have_ read that book, but she would have felt bad about making the assumption anyway.

And she would have blushed and he would have been really tempted to make that hand gesture and say _like it ain't fair what you do to me_.

The idea brought his mind back to the novel and he realized that, while he hadn't really enjoyed the story, he'd clearly been engaged enough that he'd forgotten part of his original pursuit. He'd gotten so caught up in finding parallels between the narrative and the characters and events in his life - and in the basic mechanics of following the somewhat intricate plot - that he hadn't really spent any time considering what Beth might have been thinking about when she'd read it herself. He had her essay to tell him a lot of that, to give him some definitive answers, but he had planned on keeping her in mind as he'd read it anyway. To try to think about how she might have interpreted or responded to each scene. To try to imagine that just for himself and because it would have given him an opportunity to see how well he really knew her. Really understood her. He wanted to have some expectation about what he might find in that essay so that he could test himself.

Test his grasp of the inner workings of the mind of Beth Greene.

Because he really couldn't lose with that. If he was right, he'd feel good. He'd feel validated. And if he was wrong, he could tell himself that she'd been a different person when she'd written that than the girl who he'd fallen in love with. And the girl who he'd fallen in love with always did fucking surprise him, so being wrong wouldn't really mean that much, either.

It was a win/win and a way to make the most of this last strange conversation.

So, he laid there, toying with her dog tags, and tried to imagine what Beth Greene had thought of the world he'd just spent the afternoon immersed in. What she'd thought of Darcy and Elizabeth and the whole cast of characters that now lived so vividly in his head. He wondered whether she'd cast anyone from her own life in those roles like he had. He'd done it out of necessity - out of the need to make the words really come to life - but he imagined that she might have done it simply because she'd been imaginative and perceptive and might have just found it fun.

He tried to think about who she would have picked to play those parts. Who her Wickham would have been. Had there been some infamous player at her school who she'd thought was perfect for the role? The kind of kid who'd thought that he was God's gift to girls and who'd had just enough girls agree with him to make him unbearable? The kind of kid who'd have known that he'd have no chance with Beth Greene but had still come on to her anyway? Looked her up and down in the hallway, acting like she was lucky that he was doing it? And what about the snotty Caroline? Had there been some queen bee mean girl who she'd pictured dressed in those ostentatiously fashionable gowns? Some girl who'd traded in backhand compliments and cruelty disguised as wit? The kind of girl who'd forget a friend in an instant if it meant gaining a boy's attention?

The exercise frustrated him, though, because it highlighted just how little he knew about her life. About all those years - all sixteen of those years - before he met her. Other than her family, he only knew of two people who had been important to her during that entire time: Jimmy and Molly Rosenberg. And while her boyfriend and her best friend were clearly major figures, they didn't come close to representing her whole social sphere. She'd had lots of friends. Lots of friend for lots of years. Not to mention teachers and doctors and pastors and fucking mailmen. Her life had been full of dozens and dozens of people. Dozens and dozens of potential Wickhams and Carolines.

And he didn't know any of them.

And since the only roles he could imagine her casting would be the main ones - picturing Jimmy and herself as Darcy and Elizabeth - he gave up that line of thought. It made him sad and it made him jealous and he really didn't want to feel those things at all. So, he changed gears and focused on the actual substance of the novel and tried to imagine what she'd thought of the story itself instead. What she'd thought of the characters and the drama that they'd put themselves through.

He wondered how differently it all might have seemed through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old girl. He was a forty-something man whose idea of romance had been giving Beth the fattest squirrel, so he knew that he wasn't the target audience for that book. She was. Or, at least, she _had been_. At that age, she probably had been. Sure, she'd known that marriage could be like a rusty bird cage and that ladies like Annabelle got their wings clipped sometimes, but he couldn't imagine that she hadn't also believed in grand passions and soulmates and _happily-ever-afters_. Though her notion of what the term meant had unquestionably changed, he imagined that she probably died _still_ believing in _happily-ever-afters_. She had just been that kind of girl. She'd had a hopeful and loving heart and, though she'd certainly become a realist, she could have never really been a cynic.

It just hadn't been her nature.

So had she been enchanted by the romantic tale? Had she torn through page after page waiting for that final proposal? Had she smiled that beautiful dreamy smile when Elizabeth finally got her man and Darcy _expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do_? Had it made her sweet little heart happy to read that?

(Because it had made _him_ laugh. He'd really liked the expression _violently in love_ as it captured the intensity of how he felt so unbelievably well, but he'd seriously questioned the quality of Jane Austen's love life if she'd thought that any man overcome with such a passion could express it _sensibly_. As far as he was concerned, the _violent_ part of _violently in love_ pretty much made sensibility impossible.)

And what had she thought about the novel's star, Elizabeth? This girl that had seemed so childish to him had actually been older than Beth had been when she'd read the book. Older than she'd been when she'd fucking _died_. How might that have changed things? Had she identified with her in any way? Had she _admired_ her in any way? If Jane Austen and her 20 million fucking readers were to be believed, there was a lot to appreciate and love about her character. Had Beth felt the same? Had she fallen for Elizabeth's charms?

Had she fallen for the brooding Darcy? He didn't like thinking about that part too much, but since he was a fictitious character, it was a little less threatening to ponder. Had her compassionate church-going heart rejoiced in his little tale of redemption? How he shed his pride and conceit and learned humility through the majesty of love? Had her greedless spirit delighted in the painfully obvious moral lesson of the wealthy man discovering that the most valuable possession was the heart of a good woman?

He imagined that she had. That she'd liked that. That she'd liked _them_. Both characters were flawed, as the title made clear, and she'd have dutifully regretted Darcy's pride and Elizabeth's prejudice, but being the forgiving soul that she was, she wouldn't have faulted either of them for it and she'd have been rooting for them all the way. She'd have been happy that they'd grown to be better people - having firmly believed that they would all along - and breathed a sigh of relief when the misunderstandings between them had been resolved.

He wondered if he was being unfair to her, but he basically believed that she'd have felt exactly how Jane Austen had wanted her feel. The novel had been written as a work of light entertainment, he assumed, not as a nuanced examination of human nature and moral ambiguity. Though good old Jane had deliberately confused things for dramatic effect, there was little doubt what the audience was ultimately supposed to think about every character. There was no question as to who was good and who was bad and who was to be pitied and who was to be praised. It was all pretty straightforward and he honestly thought that Beth would have interpreted the story exactly on those clearly drawn lines. Not because she's lacked the sophistication to read it another way, but because - unless you were an embittered asshole like him - he didn't know if there really _was_ another way to read it.

He'd been so lost in thought that he hadn't realized just how late it was getting. The sun was beginning to set and he probably only had another hour of daylight left. Another hour before he'd have to force himself to climb out of that bed that he never wanted to leave and turn on the lantern if he wanted to read Beth's essay.

And he _really_ wanted to ready her essay.

He didn't want to wait until the next morning. As much as he generally tried to stretch all things Beth-related out as long as possible, he didn't feel the need to do that this time. He'd paid his dues by reading 226 pages of Jane Austen and he was more than ready to reap his reward of seven pages of Beth Greene. So, he took his hand off the dog tags, reached for the paper that he'd left on the nightstand, and began to read.

And, Mrs. Palmer had been right, it was _unexpected in places_. At least to him. Elizabeth's primary flaw - that infamous prejudice - was intended to be criticized, but he was surprised by just how harsh Beth had been against her character in general. Just how many aspects of her personality and her behavior Beth had found fault with. Since she was Beth, she'd expressed those sentiments in the least offensive - and most voluminous - way possible, but Daryl could have summarized the four paragraphs she'd devoted to the subject in a single sentence.

 _This annoyin' little girl needs to get her shit together._

It definitely would have been an unfair summation, as she'd clearly put far more thought into her analysis than that -and conveyed her multiple points far more eloquently - but that was more or less his take away and it really made him smile.

What made him smile even more though were the paragraphs that immediately followed those in which Beth explored how Elizabeth had become so flawed and why that was so unfortunate for her. Those paragraphs where she tried to understand and show compassion for the girl who, as he would have said, couldn't get her shit together. As he'd suspected, she seen all of the character's faults - seen even more than he'd ever expected - but she hadn't been able to bring herself to to truly blame her for them. To hold them against her or to see her as any less of a person because of them.

Among other things, Beth mused on how difficult it must have been for Elizabeth to grow up in the shadow of her older sister: the ethereal Jane who's portrayed as the epitome of gentility and grace and the family's most marriageable daughter. She speculated that that had caused her to feel inferior and unhappy and that so many of her actions - her treatment of other people and her views on the world - had been influenced by that. He wasn't sure how true that was, and he definitely didn't care, but he found it incredibly interesting that Beth had seen it that way.

He wondered if she'd been projecting any of her own experiences into that interpretation. If she'd felt like she'd lived in Maggie's shadow. And he realized that she probably had. She almost _certainly_ had. He thought of their fight at the moonshine shack and how she'd accused him of thinking that she was inferior to the other women at the prison. She'd listed several names, but she hadn't listed them all and she'd _definitely_ listed Maggie. He could remember her spitting that out as the final name on the list and, in retrospect, maybe it was like she was saving the most meaningful one for last. He thought back to talking to her about playing sports in school and how she'd told him that Maggie had always been the athletic one. She'd been embarrassed a bit during that conversation at, at the time, he'd attributed that to her being embarrassed over her presumed lack of physical skill. Over the fact that it might have made her look weak and ill-equipped to survive. But maybe it had been more than that. Maybe it had felt like yet another desirable quality that Maggie had and she didn't

And that would all make such sense, of course. Not just because a younger sister would often feel compared to her older sister and feel inferior to her, but because Maggie really _was_ a pretty intimidating person. She was attractive and bold and strong. He didn't know what she'd been like before the turn, but he imagined that she hadn't been that different in the fundamentals. She'd probably always had more confidence than Beth. And she was practical as well. She wasn't a dreamer like her sister, so maybe that had made her seem like she'd be more successful, too. Like she was that brash Russian bull in a china shop that might cause some damage, but like she'd at least make an impact on the world in the process.

An impact that, maybe, Beth wondered if she'd make as strongly.

After giving Elizabeth a thorough - but compassionate - scolding, Beth had had far fewer criticisms to level at Darcy. As with his lady love, she'd made the obligatory mention of his pride, but even in that she'd made pains to withhold her judgment. While she'd tried to understand and even sympathize with Elizabeth, she'd clearly _wanted_ to sympathize with Darcy. Her section analysing Elizabeth's shortcomings had read like a _explanation_ , but her section examining Darcy's missteps had read more like a _defense_. She'd given him an easy pass on his botched marriage proposal, claiming that it had been an incredible hard thing to do and that people often handle hard things poorly. She'd argued that his insults had, in their own way, been a meaningful expression of his regard for Elizabeth. He'd been trying to be honest and, while that honestly had come out as cruelty, it had been a laudable goal. It had been a sign of respect and, for a man like Darcy, that kind of respect had really meant something.

His intentions had been honorable and he'd been doing the best that he could do.

And the same went for all of his other errors and missteps. She'd seen him as a person who'd always tried to do the right thing but who, like most people, was sometimes wrong about what the right thing was. And in her eyes that had made him _mistaken_ , but it hadn't made him and less _admirable_.

What really touched Daryl, though, were her comments about Darcy's poor communications skills: that inability to talk, or to talk well, that he'd found so painfully relatable. Though it had been a problem that had plagued him for his whole life - and a problem that had only become worse when he'd fallen for her - apparently Beth hadn't seen it as much of a problem at all.

And she certainly hadn't seen it as a flaw.

 _Being good with words is either a talent you're born with or it's a skill you learn, but it's not a reflection of your character. It's no different than being a good painter or a good musician or a good athlete. It doesn't reflect anything about who you are as a person. It doesn't even reflect how smart you are. You could be absolutely brilliant and not be able to string a sentence together or you could be dumb as a post and have the total gift of gab. Being good with words pretty much only tells you one thing about a person: they're good with words. So judging Darcy for not being good with worlds seems like judging him for not being able to play the flute. It's completely irrelevant._

 _And it's completely foolish, too, because most people can't play the flute. Most people struggle to express themselves, especially when they're overwhelmed. Darcy struggles to express himself the most when he's feeling the most and that's pretty much true of most people. People struggle with words when their emotions get the better of them and we've all said things in the heat of the moment that we've regretted. We've all said things that we wished we could have phrased differently or just never said at all…_

Even though it was a school paper and, theoretically, she could have been writing what she'd thought her teacher had wanted to read, he truly believed that she'd meant every word of that. He could practically hear her _saying_ every word of that. And it was so wonderful because, if she had said it to him, he wouldn't have believed her. He wouldn't have thought she was _lying_ , but he would have thought she was exaggerating to try to make him feel better. He would have thought that those words were coming from her beautiful heart, not her beautiful brain. That it'd have been kindness not logic, not true _belief_ , that had prompted her to say them.

But Beth had _believed_ that shit.

He knew that she had.

Even that last part, even the part about everyone saying things that they regret at times, he knew that she'd believed. Knew that she'd truly meant _everyone_ and had included herself in that group. That that hadn't been hyperbole. Though he'd completely deserved what she'd said to him at the moonshine shack - deserved that and so much more - he'd known that she regretted some of it. Had felt bad about calling him a _jackass_. He'd known that it had bothered her and there had always been a part of him that had wondered why she'd never said anything. It had seemed so out of character for her not to apologize for the outburst and it had always tickled his brain as to why she'd never done it. It had taken the incident with Maggie, the conversation in which she'd stopped herself from asking if he was in love with Beth, to make him understand why she'd been silent. Just like her sister, she'd done it out of kindness. She'd known that her apology would have put a spotlight on his words and made it seem like she'd expected an apology in return. And she'd known that he hadn't been able to do that, hadn't been comfortable with doing that, so she'd let the whole thing go. She hadn't apologized, even though her sweet, guilt-ridden soul had wanted to, because she'd placed his needs over her own.

The guy who had manhandled her and yelled at her and had been _very much_ a jackass.

The guy who definitely hadn't deserved that kind of consideration, but got it anyway.

Because she was Beth and Beth understood.

She'd understood him then and, reading everything that she'd written about Darcy, he'd felt like she'd understood him before they'd even met. Like she'd forgiven his faults before there had even been any faults for her to forgive. And she'd never judged him for them. He'd always felt like that, but it was different seeing it in black in white. It was different seeing it as something that she'd written as a blanket statement of truth. Something that she'd thought about and composed and put on paper and submitted for someone else's critique. An opinion that she'd made in print with her name boldly stamped on top. It was like a contract, like a sworn oath, and he was holding it in his hands.

She'd never judged him for not playing the flute.

He turned his head and could see the shiny instrument sitting on top of her bookcase and could so easily imagine her doing the same as she'd searched for that somewhat odd metaphor. It was a strange choice but, in his case, he thought it was so perfectly apt. Her precious little hands had probably been able to navigate that delicate instrument with ease, but his never could. His hands were large and rough and weren't made for such fine work. His fingers would probably cover two holes when he'd want to cover one and strike a discordant note completely different than the one that he'd intended.

Than the beautiful onethat _she'd_ have been able to strike.

But his hands _could_ do so many other things, though. They could shoot a bow and skin a deer and start a fire. They could fix an engine and kill a walker and even diaper a fucking baby. (Thanks to her.) His hands weren't useless. So, he loved that weird little metaphor. It made it seem - in a way that he could really relate to - like communicating truly was just a talent or a skill like any other. He'd never think that she was any less of a person because she couldn't change the oil on a Triumph, just like she'd never think that he was any less of a person because he couldn't play that fucking flute. They were both good with their hands, their hands just happened to be good at different things.

And that was, as Jane Austen would say, perfectly _reasonable_.

It was almost completely dark now and he knew that he'd need to get up soon. He'd have to leave her bed and return to his own. Go take his evening antibiotics and some more aspirin and get something to eat. He didn't want to move, though. He didn't want to leave his new favorite place, so he closed his eyes and told himself that he'd just take a few more minutes.

Just a few more minutes and then he'd get up.

And when he did, he was going to grab that flute. He was going to tell her _Eiffel like learnin' to play_ and he was going to add it to his dresser shrine. Because he wanted that reminder of her understanding with him and because he really did, metaphorically, want to learn to play the flute. Even if her spirit was the only one who ever heard him. He wanted to learn how to speak better. To say what needed to be said and to say it right.

He wanted to learn to play the flute.

For her.

* * *

 _Yes, I really did just do that to you. I really did just make you read 20,000 words where all a guy did was go through one backpack and read a book. Send me your chiropractor bills because I'm sure I gave you whiplash with all that fast-paced drama and spine-tingling action!_

 _Seriously, I hope that wasn't too tedious. And I hope that the whole Pride and Prejudice thing wasn't a total nightmare. I probably should have cut that down, but it got away from me and I'm a terrible editor. If you aren't that familiar with the book, I hope I wrote it in a way that still made sense. If you are familiar with the book, I hope you weren't annoyed either by my over-explanation or my over-simplification of the story. That was a sticky wicket. (And, really, a wicket I probably should have left alone, but I really wanted Daryl to read a damn romance novel and it happened to suit my purposes, too.)_

 _Anyway, thanks again for reading and for all your comments and support! Your words me SO MUCH to me and knowing that some people are enjoying this story has really meant a lot during a difficult time. Hope you have a great weekend. (And that we find out WTF is going on with Glenn on Sunday! Damn it all!)_

 _And a special thanks to rougequeen69 for sharing her thoughts on Daryl and Beth's bed. I know you didn't envision me having him read Jane Austen in there, but your comments were really helpful._

 _ALL of yours are. And, once again, I'm sorry I'm so bad at telling you that. But you've all helped me so much. So thanks again. :)_

 _TOTALLY SHAMELESS PLEA AND COMPLETE ABUSE OF THIS FORUM:_

 _Okay, so if you've been reading my author notes, you might remember that I've been sick for pretty much the entire time that I've been writing this story. Among other things, I've been diagnosed with something called costochondritis which is basically like arthritis of the ribcage/sternum. It restricts my breathing and makes me feel like I'm having a heart attack and there's very little that can be done but wait for it to resolve itself on its own. Which is an insanely long process. I'm doing the few things that I can and I'm lucky enough to have good medical care, but it's been a terrible experience and I'm really desperate to feel better…_

 _So I'm wondering if any of you happen to have any experience with this yourself (or know someone who has) and have something you can recommend other than steroids, anti-inflammatories and heat/cold? I'm relatively young, so I can withstand a lot of stuff, even if it's a hardcore kind of treatment._

 _I feel insanely awkward asking, but I have this forum where you guys read this and I just have this little voice that keeps saying, "What if there's a reason for that? What if THAT'S why you've been writing fiction for the first timing in your ENTIRE fucking life? In this time period that totally overlaps with you being sick? What if that's not a coincidence? What if it's because someone reading this can help you?" I know that sounds nutty, but I'm at that nutty stage of feeling ill. So please let me know if you have any insight. I don't care if it's a prescription drug or telling me to eat three plums a day. If it's worked for you or someone you know, please pass it along!_

 _(Or, if you're like, "You know, my aunt thought that she had costochondritis for years, but it turns out she had FlipFlorp Disease," please pass that along, too!)_

 _Thank you so much! Even if you have no insight at all, thanks for listening to me whine! Be well and, for God's sake, if you can breathe easily, enjoy the FUCK out of it! Because it's awesome. :)_


	10. Chapter 10

_Hello dear readers! Must be some special holiday magic in the air because I managed to get this one out pretty quickly. (At least by my standards!) Hope you enjoy it and thanks again for reading. Your hits/comments/kudos and general support me a lot to me. :)_

* * *

As hard as it had been, Daryl had eventually forced himself out of Beth's bed the day that he'd read _Pride and Prejudice_.

He'd like to have thought that it was his sense of propriety that had made him do it, but really it had been his need to take his antibiotics: those precious pills that she'd guided him towards and the miracles that he refused to squander. If it hadn't been for that, he would have slept there all night. He'd felt so comfortable there - had felt so connected to Beth there - that he hadn't been able to resist the lure of returning. And, since reading that book had provided him with what he'd felt was an acceptable context for doing so, it was a model that he'd decided to follow.

Every day, he would pick a volume from Beth's bookshelf and spend the morning reading it.

As he had with _Pride and Prejudice_ , he'd imagine those hours as shared experiences. As times when he and Beth had done the same thing in the same place and maybe, just maybe, had the same thoughts while doing it. And that was incredibly intimate to him, but the intimacy was softened by the innocent and largely cerebral nature of the activity. By the fact that he was simply reading a book on top of the covers in broad daylight. It had felt acceptable to him in a way that lying in her bed just for the sake of it never would have. That getting under the quilt or actually sleeping in her bed never would have. Because those acts would have felt like he was solely being intimate with her body. And, while that would have felt incredibly _good_ , it would have also felt incredibly wrong. But the books changed that. He found the intimacy of lying in her bed profoundly physical, but reading gave it a spiritual element -a psychological element - that made it seem like he was connecting with the totality of her. Like they were just sharing stories on a lazy day and enjoying each other's company.

And if they happened to be in a bed, so what?

It felt acceptable and it felt good and he looked forward to it every day. It had been his pattern for about a week now and, with dozens and dozens of books still left on her shelf, he imagined that it would be his pattern to one extent or another for quite some time to come. He was nearing the end of his course of antibiotics and almost back to feeling completely better in terms of his general health. His hand continued to be painful and, while he'd regained most of his dexterity, he still lacked a lot of strength and wasn't up for many tasks beyond the basics. Nevertheless, he knew it wouldn't be long before he was in good enough shape to return to the task of securing the farm and get back to hunting - or, at least, trapping - to fill out his rapidly dwindling food supply. Still, he didn't plan on giving up the reading. He might not always be able to devote his whole morning to it, but he'd find a way to fit it in every day. It was part of his life now - part of their life now - and he truly cherished.

Despite the fact that, like _Pride and Prejudice_ , he rarely cherished the books.

And, at the beginning at least, he hadn't cherished them at all. He'd eventually realized that he'd only really had himself to blame for his disinterest, though. That he'd been going about things all wrong. Beth hadn't made any notes in _Pride and Prejudice_ , but some of her other presumably assigned books had had a few comments in them - mostly just highlighted passages, but sometimes a few scattered words as well - and he'd gone for those first because he'd been drawn to that visible evidence of her. Drawn to that concrete evidence of those being _her_ books: the very ones that she'd held in her sweet little hands, marked up with her sweet little hands, and read with her sweet little eyes. And he'd hoped that those highlighted phrases and scattered words would offer some personal insight, too. That they'd provide some window onto her mind or onto her heart.

That he could have another little conversation with her again.

So, he'd read _The Great Gatsby_ and _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and a couple other classics and, though he'd found them an improvement over good old Jane, he hadn't truly liked any of them. And he hadn't found Beth's little comments or highlights illuminating, either. Actually, they _had_ been illuminating, but not in the way that he'd hoped. All her notations had made it abundantly clear that she really had read those books as assignments and that she'd been studying them as a result. She hadn't been _enjoying_ them. She hadn't been reading them for pleasure. Her notes had been the notes of a reader who was solely preparing for a test or a paper. They hadn't revealed anything about her except that she'd been trying to remember pivotal plot points in preparation for some kind of evaluation. She'd been reading them dutifully just like, on some level, he'd been reading them dutifully.

And he hadn't wanted to share a dutiful experience with her.

He'd wanted to share a _good_ experience with her. And experience that she'd _wanted_ to have.

So, a couple of days ago, he'd switched to the books on her lower shelf and started reading her volumes about animals. He'd read all of the ones about mysterious creatures long ago. All the ones that he'd found truly compelling in their own right and would have wanted to read no matter what. But he'd always been interested in nature and had found the last two volumes informative and, at times, honestly engaging. He didn't really have any use for the information that they'd contained, but - as long as he could do it on his own terms - he'd always liked learning. And he really liked learning about things that Beth had been interested in. Learning facts that had rattled around in her head or captured her imagination. He'd started out with a book about dogs because it had reminded him of one of their last conversations together - that conversation where he'd learned about his future savior Stopsign - and it had felt so much better than those stodgy classics. Had felt so much more like her and like him and like _them_.

They weren't Virginia Woolfs, after all.

They were _real_ wolves.

They were fiercely devoted creatures of the forest who valued family above all else, not elite intellectuals who dined with fine society.

The switch in content had made the activity even more intoxicating and feel like even more of an indulgence. And, since those twenty-four stitches no longer threatened him and he'd gone through more of Beth's room than he'd liked, he'd stopped giving himself twenty-four Beth points a day and had returned to his original ten. Still, he was determined not to be too greedy. So he'd been using his points on the Beth units that he'd considered the least potentially revealing: her dresser drawers. With the exception of the top two - either of which could contain her underwear and maybe other private items - he'd assumed that the other drawers would be nothing but clothes. And, so far, he'd been right. The three that he'd investigated had just been tops and pants and he imagined that the others would be no different. And that seemed to balance out his use of the bed - balance out all that added Bethness - because those things didn't tell him that much about her. Maybe if he'd known more about fashion, he'd thought, he might have picked up on something more. But, to him, pants were pretty much pants and finding eleven pairs of Beth's in her bottom left-hand drawer hadn't helped him understand her much better than an empty drawer would have.

That being said, he still took a great deal of pleasure in going through her clothes. On a very basic level, he simply enjoyed touching things that had once touched her. It made him feel like a bit of a creep, but he'd sometimes run his hands on the insides of the fabric - the part that had been in contact with her skin - and imagine that he was touching her in some phantom sort of way. Not in a sexual way, but just in a way that connected them on the closest possible level. On some atomic level. He'd even imagined on a a few occasions that some of her skin cells might have been trapped in that denim or that corduroy. That he might really and truly have been touching a part of _her_. That made him feel more disturbed than just touching the inside of the fabric did, though, so he'd try to shake off those thoughts as soon as they arrived.

(They might have been disturbing, but those thoughts weren't entirely new. He'd considered her skin cells before when confronting the dust in her room: that thin layer of fine powder that coated every inch of the place. He didn't know if it was true or not, but he'd remembered hearing that household dust contained a lot of dead skin cells. And there had been times, random moments here and there, when he'd run his fingers over some surface - to pick up an object or just to touch something of hers - and he'd get that dust on his hand and wonder if there was a little piece of her in there. Some tiny, long-discarded speck of her skin. Some fragment of her DNA. The building blocks of her very life. The first time the thought had occurred to him, he'd surprised himself by rubbing his dusty hands together: grinding the powder into his skin, rather than wiping it off on his pants. And that had become his habit ever since. Though he rarely thought about the DNA element of it anymore - rarely allowed himself what he considered a desperate and unhealthy train of thought - he still performed the action the thought had precipitated. If they'd gotten dirty in her room, he never wiped his hands off on his pants.)

So, there was a tactile appeal to her clothes and there was a visual appeal to them, too. Though she'd aged several years since that had been her wardrobe, she hadn't really _grown_. Maybe she'd put on some muscle tone or maybe she'd shed a small amount of pre-apocalypse fat - if she'd had any to spare - but all those clothes would have fit her and he could easily picture her in them all. _Liked_ picturing her in them all. Clothes had never been the kind of thing that he'd paid any attention to - on himself or, really, on anyone else - and he didn't have a particularly creative mind when it came to that kind of thing. The stories inspired by the objects in her room had occasionally brought out surprisingly vivid images of specific outfits - sundresses and short shorts and even bathing suits - but for the most part she existed in his mind in cowboy boots, tight jeans, and some nondescript top. It was basically her uniform and, while he really loved her uniform, he also really liked imagining her in something different from time to time.

Something that wasn't mildly tainted by the knowledge that she never should have been the kind of girl who wore a uniform.

It had perfectly suited the woman who she'd become - and he would always love it for that - but he wished that she hadn't had to become that woman. That she hadn't lived in a world where she'd had to wear the same thing day after day. And where those things hadn't been determined solely by what was available and by what fit. He'd never thought of her as someone obsessed with fashion - and her room had more or less confirmed that - but she'd been a creative person and, unlike him, she wouldn't have chosen to limit herself to one outfit for all time. She wouldn't have wanted a uniform. And her drawers gave him a way to get her out of that uniform. To dress up his favorite model in the kind of clothes that she'd deserved to wear - the kind of clothes that she'd clearly, at one point, _wanted_ to wear - and to do it with very little imagination on his part.

His greatest enjoyment came from the game, though.

His new favorite game that he'd play for hours and hours.

His new favorite game which he uncreatively called _Remember When_.

He'd been telling himself stories about her objects since the days when he'd still lingered in her hallway. Since before he'd even entered her room, he'd spun tale after tale about her things. And, despite his fears, those stories had never stopped coming. They were an integral part of the whole experience of going through her things and every item had at least one origin story attached to it. And often many more. Her clothes were somewhat different, though. They didn't strike the same fantasy chord that her mason jar full of rocks or her spool of thread with the googly eyes or her ceramic fairy with the chipped wing had. They didn't make him imagine where she'd gotten them or why she'd treasured them or what had appealed to her about them. They didn't inspire those kind of stories.

But the _did_ inspire stories.

Lots of stories. Wonderful stories. His favorite kind of stories.

The stories that lay at the heart of _Remember When_.

It had started with her engraved wooden ring. The that one he'd imagined carving for her as an engagement ring: spinning a tale complete with a proposal story and a delightfully graphic post-acceptance celebration. A tale that he'd related to her - at least in its more innocent form - as if it had been real. As if he'd been recalling a memory. He'd asked her _Remember when_...and then proceed to recount the happy event. And it had been such a satisfying experience that he hadn't been able to keep himself from doing it again. From inserting himself into the stories behind her objects. Imagining himself making them for her or giving them to her or even her giving them to him.

He'd imagined giving her that mason jar full of rocks after an all-too-brief sexual encounter with an apology and a promise that next time he'd really _rock her world_.

He'd imagined her making the spool of thread with the googly eyes as a toy for Judith, who'd found it weirdly terrifying, leading Beth to jokingly give it to him for protection instead: a totem to frighten off any potential foe.

He'd imagined giving her the blonde fairy because it reminded him of her magic and imagined her doing something pretty fucking magical to him in return that caused the fairy to get knocked over and acquire that chip on its wing.

And, most of the time - like the first time - he told her those stories. He'd start off with _Remember when_...and then tell her his tale. _Their_ tale. The tale behind the object that always brought them together. Sometimes the game would become too explicit to be vocalized - or, at least, to be vocalized in its entirety - but, for the most part, talking to Beth was a critical part of it. Part of what made it so fun.

Part of what made it seem so real.

He could play _Remember When_ with anything, but with her clothes he could _only_ play _Remember When_. For whatever reason, those stories really were the only stories that her clothes inspired. He could _picture_ her wearing them in all sorts of places in her old life. At school, at church, at parties. He could picture those scenes quite well, but he couldn't form any attachment to them. Couldn't flesh them out with a narrative that had any meaning. He couldn't become invested in a story behind her wearing a pair of jeans with a torn knee to muck out the horse stable.

That just didn't do anything for him.

But he _could_ become invested in a story about admiring her wearing those jeans before they became torn. A story about watching as she tore them. A story about trying to hide his happiness at seeing the newly exposed skin while she lamented the damaged garment. A story about always grabbing her knee every time they sat down from that point on. A story about pretending that he was just doing that to keep her bare flesh warm. A story about her pretending that she believed him.

He could get into a story like _that_.

Sometimes the stories would be set in the real world - in the _new_ world - in a fictitious but still fully-apocalyptic environment. They'd be set in the world that they would have lived in if he'd never opened that door. In the world where she'd never been taken and they'd built a life together - just the two of them - surviving against all odds while civilization crumbled. Sometimes they'd have made a home - have settled somewhere and be safe and sound - while other times they'd be making it in the woods: maybe not so much living on the run, but definitely living on the move. No matter what, though, they were always together and they were always happy.

 _"Remember when you found this in that huntin' cabin?," he'd asked her over a fitted green sweater that he'd found in her bottom right-hand drawer. "We'd just taken out that bunch of walkers and you was all covered in shit, but you didn't have nothin' to change into. Figured I was just gonna have to give you my shirt - which, you know, was always a good look on you, so I didn't mind - but you wanted to search the cabin first. See if you could find somethin' else. Didn't wanna leave me without a shirt."_

 _"'Course I knew it was 'cause you couldn't handle the sheer manliness of Daryl Dixon," he'd teased her, finding the notion of her being attracted by his bare chest ridiculous. "But you said you just didn't want me bein' cold. Tryin' to hide behind that kindness you're always fakin'. As usual."_

 _"Didn't think you'd have any fuckin' luck, though," he'd informed her, returning to the plot. "'Cause we was in the goddamn boonies and the guy that owned the place had been like 300 hundred pounds or some shit. Coat on the back of the door looked like a goddamn sleepin' bag. But then I hear you make that little girly squeal of yours and you come out of the back room with this sweater in your hands. Lookin' brand fuckin' new and the only fuckin' lady's thing in there. No idea why he had it. Woulda thought he was a cross-dresser, but it never woulda fit him."_

 _"Fit you like a fuckin' dream, though," he'd laughed, picturing it vividly. "You put that thing on and my jaw fuckin' dropped. You'd been wearin' that goddamn sweatshirt for weeks. That bulky grey one that was way too fuckin' big for you. Fuckin' hated that sweatshirt. Fell down past your ass. And you know it ain't right to keep somethin' like that hidden. Lotsa bad shit in the world, girl, but that's straight up evil."_

 _"'Less it's my shirt that's hidin' it," he'd amended with smirk. "That shit's okay. But that's the only fuckin' exception. That's the exception that proves the rule. And the rule is: your ass shouldn't be hidden."_

 _"And this sweater definitely didn't hide your ass," he'd told her with another light laugh, knowing it would have been totally true. "This sweater didn't hide much of nothin'. Covered your skin but, fuck, that was just about all. Finally got to see what'd been lurkin' under that devil sweatshirt all those weeks. Funny part was, I'd been wantin' to get you outta that sweatshirt that whole time, then I see you in this sweater and all I could think 'bout was how I could get you outta it, too."_

 _"Remember when you let me do that?," he'd asked her before drifting off into silence, the narrative taking a direction that could only be continued in the privacy of his mind._

Sometimes the stories would take place in the old world, though. In a world before walkers and Governors and funeral homes. In some ridiculously fictitious old world where somehow they got together despite all logic indicating that they never, ever would have. It was a world where he took her to the movies and out to dinner and bought her flowers on the way home from work. In a world where he had a stable job and supported her and provided them with a comfortable life. In a world where they had a good home and where the refrigerator was never empty and the power was never shut off and where Beth never worried about her safety or security. In a world that he'd never lived in but would have loved to have lived in with her.

And, in that world - in the world where they weren't alone, in the world where there were other men with leering eyes - the rules about her ass were different.

 _"Remember when we got into a fight over these?," he'd asked her about a pair of black velvet pants that had an inseam with one of the shortest zippers that he'd ever fucking seen. They had to have say insanely low on her hips and, even on a girl as slender as her, had to have been tight as hell, too. "Got that bonus at work for fixin' up all them bikes early. Beatin' the deadline on that contract. And I wanted to take you out to celebrate. Do somethin' nice for you. 'Cause you always deserved it, but you'd especially deserved it then. I'd been so busy and hadn't enough time for you. You always understood that shit, but I always fuckin' hated. Hated when I was late for dinner or had to leave before you got up."_

 _"So I wanted to do somethin' nice and you always wanted to go dancin;," he'd told her, imagining as being the kind of thing that's she'd have liked to do. "Fought you on that forever but I figured a man's gotta give in sometime. Especially if he's up against Beth Greene. So I told you I take you to that little bar that had that band and that I'd dance one dance with you. Once dance with you after five beers. That was the deal."_

 _"And you was so excited, I felt like a jackass for not agreein' sooner," he'd said, thinking of all those times that he could have made her happy and hadn't. "Felt like an asshole, 'til you walked out wearin' these pants. Plannin' on wearin' these things to a fuckin' bar. Said you just wanted to look nice and you fuckin' did. Looked way too fuckin' nice to be dancin' in a bar. Way too nice to be shakin' that ass of yours where any man could . Fuck, where any woman could see it. Your ass don't discriminate, girl. It's a goddamn beacon for everyone with a pulse."_

 _"And there was no fuckin' way I was takin' you out like that," he'd informed her with a laugh, because it would have been true."No fuckin' way I was gonna spend all night guardin' you like a bulldog and starin' down every man in the joint. Wouldn'ta been no point anyway. Wouldn'ta been able to dance 'cause the band woulda seen you in these and forgot every damn song they'd ever heard. And I tried to tell you that and you just laughed. Thought I was jokin'."_

 _"But I was serious as hell and we got into a dumbass fight over it," he'd gone on, able to clearly picture such an event. "Or, really, I got into a dumbass fight over it and you kinda let me. Let me blow off my jealous little steam. 'Cause you thought I was overreactin', but you knew how crazy that shit made me. How crazy I got thinkin' 'bout other men dreamin' 'bout you. And you didn't think they did. You thought some of 'em mighta thought you was pretty but you didn't think they dreamed 'bout you. But I knew you was wrong, girl. All of 'em dreamed 'bout you. And they definitely woulda dreamed 'bout you in these fuckin' pants. Man wouldn't stand a chance with you in these fuckin' pants."_

 _"The Pope woulda dreamed of you in these pants" he'd laughed and shaken his head. "Woulda made up some bullshit 'bout bein' given an eleventh commandment that said Thou Shall Always Covet Beth Greene when he saw you in these fuckin' pants. Make wantin' you his holy fuckin' duty."_

 _"So I put my foot down like an asshole and told you to change," he'd told her, because he'd firmly believed that's what he would have done. Or, at least, what he would have been tempted to do. "And you refused. Told me it was your ass and you could dress it up however you wanted. And that was like a red flag to a bull, girl. "Cause you're all independent and shit, and I love that 'bout you, but you know I thought your ass was mine. Least, I fuckin' wanted it to be mine and those pants would make any man think your ass was up for grabs. Fuckers at the bar wouldn't be thinkin', 'Hey there's an independent girl who dresses her ass however she wants.' They'd be thinkin' 'Hey, there's a girl without a man who's dressin' up her ass just for me.'"_

 _"And it was supposed to be this nice night and suddenly we're at a fuckin' stalemate," he'd continued. "'Cause you wouldn't change and I wouldn't take you to a bar like that. And I was startin' to feel like shit 'cause I didn't know what to do. I tried to talk myself out of it, you know? Put that shit in perspective. But I just couldn't. Just couldn't get over the thought of men lookin' at you dressed like that. Watchin' you dance dressed like that. And you'd been so excited and I'd felt like I'd just totally fucked it up. Fucked it up 'cause I was an insecure pussy."_

 _"And you could see I was strugglin'," he'd said with a soft smile. "'Cause you always fuckin' could. And then you told me flat out that those pants weren't comin' off 'til you got your dance, so if I wanted you outta of 'em I better get to steppin'. And then you walked over and turned on the stereo, put on that Patsy Cline you always loved, and held out your hand. Asked if you could have this dance, like I was the belle of the ball. Couldn't fuckin' believe it."_

 _"But, of course I could, 'cause you're you," he'd corrected with a light laugh. "Told me you only wanted to dance with me. That you didn't need to go to a bar or hear a band. Didn't need to do it in front of anyone. You just wanted to dance and the kitchen worked fine for you. Joked and said you liked it, too, 'cause the ladies wouldn't be lookin' at my ass, neither. As if that were a fuckin' worry."_

 _"So we danced to 'Crazy' in the kitchen," he'd gone on, lost in the dream. "Slow danced while Patsy sang. Or, really, shuffled 'cause I couldn't dance for shit. But I couldn't keep my hands of you, neither, so I couldn't complain none. Weren't a bad situation to be stuck in and I couldn't believe I'd fought you on it for so long. Dancin' with Beth Greene while she's wearing sinful fuckin' pants that show off the ass that she's lettin' you touch ain't a bad way to spend an evenin'."_

 _"So we danced for the rest of the album and then you told me that I'd held up my end of the deal" he'd said, eyes closed and getting to the best part of an already really enjoyable story. "I'd given you your dance, so now you'd be willin' to change. And then you looked at me with that devil look of yours and asked if I had any requests. And I told you 'nothin'' And you got confused, like I meant I didn't have no requests. But that had been my request. I wanted you in nothin'. And you laughed and asked if I'd been tryin' to dance the pants off of you. And I laughed and told you 'yes' and asked you if it'd worked."_

 _"Remember when you said that it had?," he'd asked her in conclusion: once again drifting off into the parts of the tale that couldn't be uttered out loud, but would live vividly in his head._

There was an element to _Remember When_ that was unbearably sad, of course. There was a part of him that hurt every time he told those stories. There was a soul-deep ache that came from visiting those dream worlds. From envisioning a life that never was and never would be. And those stories felt so real that there was an ache that came from that, too. A phantom loss of phantom memories. Conversations and kisses and so many things that had never happened but whose passing he still mourned. He'd play the game and sometimes find himself grieving the inability to return to moments that had never occurred in the first place.

That kind of sadness was just a permanent presence in his life now, though. His constant companion. Sometimes it was screaming in his ear and wouldn't let him be. Sometime it was just sitting silently by his side. But it was always there. Always there with him. And the joys of _Remember When_ were worth the pain. The delights of the dream world were always worth the rude awakening.

And he looked forward to revisiting every day.

And, having just spent the morning reading a book about the history of dog domestication, he was ready to revisit his dream world again. Ready to open up that fourth drawer and play _Remember When_. As he has with the others, he pulled the entire drawer out of the dresser and placed it on the floor: sitting down cross-legged in front of it. To his surprise, it appeared to be mostly socks and a few tank tops or some other kind of flimsy clothes. He'd really expected those things to be in one of her top drawers. In one of the drawers that he'd also worried would contain her underwear and had deliberately avoided because of it. So, that had definitely been the second drawer from the top and he was puzzled as to why she'd organized things that way. He'd gone through enough people homes to know that that was kind of unusual, but he didn't have much time to think about it before his attention was caught by something even more surprising. Or, at least, even more unexpected.

A small cigar box.

It was the first thing that he'd come across in her dresser that hadn't been clothing. And, again, while part of him had anticipated finding things other than apparel in her dresser - had anticipated finding various stored and maybe even secret objects - he'd always thought that those would be in the top drawers, too. In the drawers that were generally filled with people's most intimate or treasured items.

He'd been excited to play the game, but the box was far more compelling. Especially given the fact that the topic of that particular day's _Remember When_ was apparently going to be Beth's socks. (Though he would, eventually, play the game even with those. Imagining giving her the pair with the mice on them because she squeaked every time he pinched her ass. Imagining calling her _little mouse_ to tease her and, in his own inartful way, come on to her, too. But that would all come later.) He reached for the box and just held it in his hands for a few moments, trying to imagine what might be inside. He knew one thing for sure, it wasn't cigars. That hadn't been Beth's private humidor. There might have been a story behind the box, but he didn't think it was any indication of its contents.

Whatever it was, it was obviously personal. Personal enough for her to store it in the dresser that probably only she ever went through, rather than leaving it out on the bookshelf or on her desk or someplace where other people might see it.

Where other people might _open_ it.

He wondered, not for the first time in her room, whether _he_ should open it. Whether that was fair. He'd pretty much crossed all those lines long ago, though, and the inner battle was brief and largely for show. He was definitely going to open it. He'd have opened it no matter what, but - for some reason - the fact that it was in that second drawer, and that it was with something as mundane as her socks, made him feel like it was slightly less intimate than it otherwise could have been.

Less of a violation than if it had been tucked in the back of the top drawer with all her bras and panties.

Lifting the lid, he saw what appeared at first to be just a random collection of objects: a ticket stub, a folded worksheet of some kind, an origami flower, a small pencil from _Fast Lanes Bowling Alley_ , and about a half a dozen other things. The folded worksheet took up a big portion of the box and he picked it up to see what was underneath and, when he did, he knew exactly what all those seemingly random things were. Knew that they weren't random at all.

There was a picture of Beth and Jimmy.

He had his arm around her and she was wearing his jacket: his _Senoia Chiefs_ jacket with a big #18 patch covering the upper part of the sleeve.

Those were all of Beth's mementos of her relationship with Jimmy. That was the place where she'd stored all those little treasures that her boyfriend had given her or that reminded her of their special moments together. That was her box of blissful memories. The happy artifacts of a young girl in love.

Or in _like_ , anyway.

He didn't know if Beth had actually loved Jimmy. She'd obviously liked him well enough to date, though, and he knew that she wouldn't have done that without a significant regard. She'd liked him. And, judging by the look on her face in that picture, she'd really liked him.

She'd really liked being his girl.

And he'd really liked it, too. The kid looked so _fucking_ happy. He looked like he'd just won the lottery and he hadn't even know that he'd had a ticket. Like he couldn't believe that he had his arm around _Beth Greene_ and that she was letting him do that. _Beth Greene_ was wearing his jacket and smiling. And Jimmy was over the goddamn moon about it. Though he was at an age where it would have been expected, he wasn't trying to play it cool.

Or, if he was, he was doing a piss poor job of it.

He seemed comfortable, but he didn't seem _casual_ at all. Didn't seem like he thought that the moment was no big deal. He was honestly even more handsome than Daryl had remembered - even more of a tall, strapping, young farm boy - and probably could have had his arm around any number of pretty girls. But he didn't look like he felt that way. He didn't seem cocky and he didn't seem like he thought that Beth Greene was just a pretty girl.

She was _Beth fucking Greene_ and he was wearing _his_ fucking jacket and he clearly couldn't be happier.

Daryl really would have thought that that picture would have upset him. Deeply upset him. He hated thinking about Beth and Jimmy. Hated thinking about her being happy with someone else and that photo was such stark evidence of that personal nightmare. There she was being touched by another man, wearing another man's clothes, smiling at another man's affection. He would have expected it to bring out the worst of his jealously. The worst of all those thoughts that had kept him from opening her diary: unwilling to read about her being someone else's girl.

Staring at the two of them, though, that jealousy didn't come. Or, at least, it didn't come on as strongly as he would have imagined. It didn't overwhelm him. Because Jimmy was just this happy fucking _kid_. Just this good kid who was thrilled to be with Beth Greene. And how could he hold that against him? He'd thought about how young Jimmy had been before, of course, but always in a twisted sense that had made him feel inferior to a teenager. He'd never really thought about it from the purely objective sense that he really had just been a _kid_. A kid not much older than Carl. A kid who had been lucky enough to meet an amazing girl and had had the balls enough to go for it. To try to make her his.

And, honestly, what could he really do but respect that?

If he'd been an entitled dick about it, it would have been a different story. But he hadn't been. And Daryl didn't need a picture to know that. Herschel never would have allowed them to date if he hadn't thought he'd been an upstanding boy and he certainly never would have let him live under his roof if he'd thought his daughters had been in any danger. Not just in danger of being hurt, but in danger of being disrespected or treated with any less care than they deserved to be.

No, Jimmy had been a good and decent kid who'd just happened to be lucky enough to catch the eye of Beth Greene.

As he started to go through the box, his opinion of Jimmy continued to improve and he could see why Beth had liked him. And that jealousy that he'd harbored for so long began to turn into simple envy. He was no longer angry at this kid for having what he'd never had - no longer mad a Jimmy, in some sick and unfair way, for taking something that he'd wanted to be his - he was simply disappointed that'd he'd never had it for himself. Simply disappointed that he hadn't had that kind of relationship with Beth.

Disappointed that she didn't have a cigar box full of memories of him.

Disappointed in a way that wasn't Jimmy's fault at all.

Because, the thing was, so many of the items in that box would have been the kind of things that he'd have wanted to be in her fictitious box of theirs. A fictitious box filled from memories from that pre-apocalypse dream world that he envisioned when playing _Remember When_. He saw himself in the Jimmy contained in that box. Saw something about the kind of boyfriend, the kind of husband, that he would have wanted to be. The kind of boyfriend, the kind of husband, that Beth would have deserved.

The movie ticket stub was such a simple and perfect example of that. It was from a film with a title that he didn't recognize, but could identify right away as an unquestionable chick kind of movie that no guy would ever want to go see. Jimmy had taken Beth, though, because she'd wanted to go and he'd wanted to make her happy. He'd wanted to be with her and, if she'd wanted to see some horrible trash about bridesmaids or wedding planners or some shit, then that's what they'd do. Because spending time with her had been more important to Jimmy than seeing the movie and Daryl would have felt that way, too. He'd have watched every tearjerker ever made - every stuffy costume drama and girl power movie ever produced - if he could have done it with Beth by his side. If she'd have wanted to go and she'd have let him go with her, he'd have been there.

Gladly.

The folded up worksheet made him appreciate the kid far more, though. Unsurprisingly, the two had apparently gone to the same church and the paper had obviously been some kind of Bible study assignment or something. The page had a piece of scripture written at the top that was followed by several paragraphs analyzing its meaning. And the subject of the quote, and of the entire lesson, had been gratitude. The importance of appreciating God's many blessing in life. At the bottom of the page, there had been ten blank lines and above them the statement _I am grateful for..._ The kids had obviously been meant to list all the things - or at least the top ten things - that they'd appreciated in their lives. And after the prompt _I am grateful for…_ , Jimmy had written a list that was entirely about Beth.

 _1) Your laugh._  
 _2) Your smile._  
 _3) Your voice._  
 _4) Your terrible sense of humor._  
 _5) Your wonderful sense of humor._  
 _6) Your friendship._  
 _7) Your kindness._  
 _8) Your cuteness._  
 _9) Your willingness to date me._  
 _10) YOU! YOU! YOU!_

He'd really wished that he'd written Beth a list like that and couldn't help himself from finding it incredibly sweet. Like just the kind of incredibly sweet thing that Beth had deserved to hear. She'd deserved to make up the full top-ten list of things that someone was grateful for. She'd deserved to have someone feel that way about her. And she'd deserved for them to be _those_ things. Clearly they'd been in church, and Jimmy had known his audience in Beth Greene, but Daryl couldn't help but think that a lot of lesser guys would have given her a different list entirely.

 _1) Your tits._  
 _2) Your pussy._  
 _3) Your ass._  
 _4) Your mouth._  
 _5) Your legs._  
 _6) Your hands (when they're on me.)_  
 _7) Your trust (because it's easy to exploit.)_  
 _8) Your kindness (because it's easy to exploit.)_  
 _9) Your hotness (because I can parade you around like a trophy.)_  
 _10) Your willingness to let things be all about ME! ME! ME!_

Few men would probably be dumb enough to write that, but most men would be assholes enough to think it. And he knew, in his heart of hearts, that Jimmy hadn't been one of them. Sure, he'd been a teenage boy and had undoubtedly lusted after Beth, but his comments about her other areas of worth had obviously been sincere. Daryl knew that because Beth and Herschel had both been good judges of character and he knew that simply because he could see it in the kid's face. And because he could feel it in his bones. And because he could feel it in the way that Beth had treasured that paper.

Jimmy had been a good fucking kid who'd liked Beth for all the right reasons.

And he'd known that he'd been lucky that she'd like him back. He'd known that he'd been lucky to have her. Daryl's impression about his lack of cockiness, his lack of entitlement, had been proven right by that list. By one of Jimmy's top-ten things that he'd been grateful for. One of his top-ten blessings from God.

 _9) Your willingness to date me._

He continued to go through the box and everything in there seemed like a token of genuine affection. Objects that seemed to demonstrate that, while he'd wanted more than her friendship, he had really seen her as a friend, too. Had known her and cared about her. He'd given her that origami flower. Which was an obvious romantic gesture, but the fact that it was made a paper - was something that would forever be in bloom - was a real _Beth_ gesture. Something that really spoke to understanding her personality. So was the small piece of old wood on which he'd written with a Sharpie _you go to Dave's party with me?_ It had taken him a second to put that one together.

 _Would you go to Dave's party with me?_

He'd been asking her out by appealing to her own lame sense of humor. The same terrible sense of humor that he'd expressed such gratitude for. That same terrible sense of humor that Daryl had enjoyed so much with her Eiffel Tower puns.

Fuck, he kind of liked Jimmy.

Not just because the kid had proven his worth, but because the truth of the matter was that it had taken Daryl almost two years of living with Beth every day to fall in love with her. A love that he'd never told her about. A love that she'd never felt. And, staring at the contents of that box, he realized that he might actually be a less selfish man than he'd thought because he didn't want to imagine her having gone her whole life without ever feeling loved. Romantically loved and desired. And the fact that she'd gotten that from Jimmy hurt him, but it would have hurt him more to know that she'd never gotten it at all.

And now Jimmy's charred corpse was lying in the wreckage of Dale's burned out RV. Standing guard over the remnants of the destroyed barn. He'd died the day the herd hit and, while Beth had certainly mourned his passing, there had been no ceremony to mark the event. No public words spoken and certainly no funeral. He'd been sweet on Beth Greene, he'd made her smile and he'd made her feel special, he'd felt lucky to know her and to be with her, and his death had gone largely ignored.

And, while that was more or less the way of the world those days, that didn't make it right. Didn't make it the kind of ending that Jimmy had deserved or the kind of ending that Beth would have wanted him to have. She'd have wanted him to be buried, she'd have wanted him to have a headstone, she'd have wanted him to be remembered.

Because he'd been important to her and because she'd just been that kind of girl.

It was remarkable how his feelings towards this kid - this teenager who he'd long seen as a humiliating romantic rival - had changed with just a handful of objects. Just a few items that made him seem like more of a real person - and a _good_ person - than he'd ever seemed before. Jimmy wasn't just a pretty boy with a set of strong hands that had once touched his girl. He was a good guy who'd made her laugh with lame jokes and then thanked God for that beautiful laugh and the terrible sense of humor that had triggered it.

After lounging in Beth's bed all morning, he still had plenty of energy left and the sun remained high in the sky. He closed the lid on the cigar box, put it back in the drawer, and returned the drawer to the dresser: unwilling to leave her room in a state of disturbance. He was going to go out to the barn and see if there was anything of Jimmy left to bury. He knew that there wouldn't be much, but there might be some scorched bones that he could gather. Some small part of Jimmy that he could still show some small sign of respect to.

He knew his hand still hurt too much to dig a grave right then, but that didn't mean that he couldn't investigate the situation and, maybe, collect the remains. And he felt really compelled to do that. At that particular moment. Perhaps it was because he'd been stuck in the house for so long and it was a good excuse to get outside. But, more than likely, it was because it felt like something that he could do for Beth. Something that he could do for her now that she was no longer around to do it for herself.

He grabbed a plastic tub from the downstairs closet that the Greenes had stored extra blankets in and, after emptying it, went into the laundry room off the kitchen and picked up a small hand broom. Despite having spent a great deal of time cleaning up the property, there had been certain areas that he'd avoided and the barn had been one of them. There had been no need to go out there and it was just a blackened monument to death. It was the starkest visual reminder on the farm of the destruction that had made them flee and he'd had no desire to visit it. The grass had grown high and it took a bit of effort for him to fight his way to the shell of the camper. And, when he finally got there, he was seriously disappointed.

And pissed.

Incredibly pissed because he'd wanted to do this nice thing and, just like they'd fucked up everything in the world, the walkers had ruined it. There were charred bones in the wreckage, of course, but there were far, far too many. Without even fully investigating, he could see at least four skulls, five femurs, and dozens of other random parts. And there was obviously no way to tell Jimmy and his killers apart. No way to know which of those bones, if any, were his. And, as much as he wanted to bury Jimmy, he didn't have the heart to bury him in a plastic tub with a pile of walker remains. That didn't seem respectful: that seemed like tidying up. That seemed like taking out the trash.

He looked down at the little broom in his hand and thought, _yeah, it seems just like taking out the trash_.

And he couldn't do that. He wanted to be a kindly undertaker, not a garbageman. He let out a low growl and a _fuck_ of frustration and started to head back to the house. He hadn't eaten since a really light breakfast and didn't want to go back to Beth's room while he felt like such a failure, so he went into the kitchen to fix himself some lunch. Eating some of his last remaining food - a can of soup that had once been cream of chicken but was now just a mealy mush - he tried to think about what else he could do.

If there was any other way that he could do right by the kid.

Halfway through the borderline digestible meal, he realized exactly what he would do. He'd bury that box. He'd bury that box of memories because, while the existence of the objects inside were a testament to how much Jimmy had cared for Beth, the fact that she'd saved them was a testament to how much _Beth_ had cared for _him_. That box showed that Jimmy had been incredibly important to Beth Greene and Daryl couldn't think of a better thing to be remembered for than that. A better thing to have stand as a monument to your life. If Beth Greene had kept a box like that of his things - a box with a piece of fletching from the first bolt that she'd shot from his bow, a bone from the first squirrel that she'd gutted after he'd showed her how, those hairpins that he'd gotten her and later destroyed - he'd have wanted that box to stand in for his body. If he didn't have a one to bury - an, honestly, even if he did - he'd want them to bury that fucking box in his grave.

So that's what he was going to do. He was going to bury that box in the graveyard that they'd made for Annette and for Shawn and for Sophia. And was going to make him some kind of headstone. A grave marker with his name - his full name that he'd learned from that worksheet - and maybe something nice, too. Something Beth would have liked. Something that would make it clear that he'd been appreciated by the girl who he'd appreciated so much. The girl who'd been all ten of the top-ten things that he'd appreciated in his world.

 _Jimmy Wilkinson_  
 _She was grateful for you, too._

He wondered if it'd be wrong to put words in Beth's mouth like that, To presume to speak for her. But he thought that her actions had pretty much spoken for her already and her general character had as well. Even if she hadn't fancied herself in love with him, she surely had to have been grateful for his friendship. For his affection and his regard. He figured that he had plenty of time to workshop the idea, though. It'd take him a while to build something and the inscription would come last anyway.

He continued to run through potential options when it suddenly - and _painfully_ \- occurred to him that he'd never thought about doing that for Beth. There he was thinking about all the things that he could do to memorialize _Jimmy_ of all fucking people, but he'd never once thought about building a monument to _Beth_. He'd built his little dresser shrine, of course, but that was just for him. That wasn't really for _her_. And it wasn't permanent, either. When he went back to Alexandria, most of those things were going with him. There'd be no lasting monument to Beth Greene on the farm. Just a room full of her things that, to anyone else, would just be a random room full of a random girl's things.

A room that would never be a temple to anyone ever again.

He hadn't been able to bury her and that had always haunted him. It bothered him on principle because he'd known that she'd thought that funerals were important. She'd have wanted one and he'd wanted to give her one. And it bothered him in a deeply visceral way, too. It upset him to his core that her body was lying sealed off in some ambulance. That it hadn't been returned to the earth. He wasn't sure if he believed in an afterlife - and he definitely hadn't for most of his days - but he believed in nature. He believed in the process of decay and regeneration. And, while he absolutely refused to think of her body rotting, he would have taken comfort in the notion of her energy being re-absorbed into the soil. Into it providing fertilizer for beautiful flowers that would bloom. Blooms that would provide pollen for bees. Bees that would turn that pollen into honey. Honey that would be eaten by some forest critter with a quick paw and a sweet tooth. He liked the idea of some of her vitality and beauty and wonder still continuing to thrive and pulse in the world. And that hadn't happened. She hadn't gotten a burial and she hadn't gotten a funeral, either.

And he couldn't change the first part of that, but he could do something about the second.

He could give her a funeral. He could build her a tombstone and lay her metaphorically to rest next to her mother and her brother. And, just like Jimmy, he could bury something in her stead. And he knew exactly what it would be. Her diary. That book that captured the most intimate and personal parts of her. That book with all her beautiful thoughts recorded in her beautiful hand. He'd bury that because it represented her the most and because it would give him the chance to finally do right by her. He hadn't been able to protect her in life, but he could guard her secrets in death. He could make sure than no other soul ever came along and poured through her innermost thoughts for light entertainment.

And to make sure that, in his weaker moments, he didn't do it, either.

He'd finished his soup and started heading towards Herschel's workshop. He wasn't ready to start building anything yet, but he wanted to know what tools and materials he had to work with. And he didn't want to wait because he was excited. Truly fucking excited. Ever since he'd seen that picture of Tommy Greene and the porch swing, he'd wanted to make something beautiful for Beth. Make something beautiful for someone beautiful. It had been part of why he'd spun the tale about making her that engagement ring and what had kicked off the entire game of _Remember When_. And, while a tombstone was the last thing that he'd want to be making for her, it was _something_. It gave him the chance to do what he wanted - what he _needed_ \- to do.

To make something lasting and lovely and worthy of her.

Looking around the impressive, if slightly run-down, workspace, he was pleased to see just how many supplies he had at his disposal. Lumber and plywood and small sheets of metal. Nails and screws and bolts. There were all the expected raw materials, but also plenty of other items he could potentially use, too. Old parts from farming equipment that, outside of their intended context, where just whimsical shapes with their own odd beauty. A piece of a broken stained glass window that glowed even in the dim room and contained several rich colors: the most dominant being that all-powerful green. A box full of old house numbers - the kind used to mark an address - in various styles which, given his recent numerical obsession, he could easily imagine finding a way to use meaningfully. He'd been in that workshop before, looking for tools and supplies to fix up the property, but he'd never looked at it with those eyes. He'd never seen everything that was really in there and he'd definitely never thought about how he could use those things beyond the most utilitarian of purposes.

He started going through the whole room, pouring through drawers and cabinets and a seemingly endless amount of cardboard boxes. That hadn't just been Herschel's workshop, it had been Tommy Greene's, too. And probably Granddaddy Greene's as well. And, though the men had clearly taken a certain amount of pride in the space and kept it orderly, it obviously hadn't been overhauled or cleared out as it had passed through the generations. It seemed like there was a hundred years worth of items in there ranging from the clearly useful to the once useful to the dubiously useful to the _what the fuck is this?_

But they all sparked his imagination.

The dream of making Beth that engagement ring had being appealing on many levels, but it had had a particular appeal because it had been something that he'd actually thought that he'd have been able to accomplish. While he'd always been a creative _problem solver_ , he'd never been creative in any artistic sense. Looking at that ring, though, he'd sincerely believed that he could have brought that kind of artistry to bear for Beth. That she would have been able to inspire that in him. Given him that kind of vision. And he'd been right. Going through all those objects in the workshop, his mind was whirling with ideas of things he could do for her. Concepts and memories that he could try to incorporate into the design. Pictures and words and symbols. All the different ways he could attempt to capture Beth's beauty and her spirit. All those things that had made her special.

All those things that had made her _her_.

The first thing that he knew was that, like that phantom engagement ring, he was going to include flowers. He was going to carve flowers for her on the finest, sturdiest piece of wood that he could find and he was going to coat it with some of that shellac in the can in the corner to preserve it for as long as possible. He'd wanted to bury her body in the earth's rich soil and have her stunning energy reveal itself to the world again when the Spring blossoms bloomed above her grave. That dream was gone, but he could bury her thoughts and her feelings - he could bury her spirit in written form - and he could make sure that flowers were always in bloom above it. Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall, she would always have flowers above her grave.

And those flowers would truly be _hers_ he decided.

The flowers that would have bloomed above her literal grave wouldn't have been any normal flowers. They would have been flowers that contained the very essence of Beth Greene. And the flowers that he would carve would be the same. He'd pick flowers that _meant_ something. Flowers that symbolized all the most important and most amazing aspects of her character. He'd never known it before investigating her room, but flowers apparently had all kinds of different meanings. Almost every flower had some quality it represented or some message it was intended to convey. He knew that because Beth had an entire book devoted to the subject. It had caught his attention because it had an odd name and he'd been curious about what it had been referring to.

 _The Language of Flowers_

He'd only flipped through it enough to see what it was, but he was going to study the _fuck_ out of it now. He was going to go through every picture and every description - every legend and historical anecdote - and he was going to pick the perfect flowers for her. The flowers that symbolized kindness and compassion and strength. Loyalty and friendship and faith. Beauty and humor and grace. Hope and vitality and love. He'd never be able to capture Beth in words, but maybe he could capture her through the beauty of nature.

Words.

There would have to be _some_ words, though. He'd send his own private message to her in the language of flowers, but there would need to be a message that the world could understand, too. Something other than just her name. Something other than a generic epitaph. Something other than _Beloved Daughter, Sister, and Friend_ or _May She Rest in Peace_. And, while he imagined that he'd be debating his choice until the last moment, he could only think of one thing that would be appropriate. One thing that truly captured who she'd been and captured it in a way that he knew had meant something to her and, without question, meant something to him, too.

 _Beth Greene_  
 _She Brought Great Joy and Happiness to the Lives of Others_

That fortune from that fortune cookie that she'd saved in that box of buttons. That fortune from that fortune cookie that had had his birthday as its lucky numbers. That fortune from that fortune cookie that had inspired her love song. That fortune from that fortune cookie that was so profoundly true. It had told her _You Will Bring Great Joy and Happiness to the Lives of Others_ and it had been right. That's exactly what she'd done with her precious little time on earth. That was exactly how she should be remembered and, he thought, how she'd _want_ to be remembered, too. She'd been a joyful and giving soul and would have wanted that to be her legacy.

He thought about her song and how she'd adapted that fortune for that critical verse. That verse that contained both that message and his birthday.

 _You'll bring great joy and happiness to the lives of others,_  
 _And one lucky day you'll be mine,_  
 _Then we'll sing our sweet song to the skies above us,_  
 _Seven, twenty-four, sixty-nine_

And he imagined how he might adapt his original epitaph, too. How he might take inspiration from her song and say what he _really_ wanted to say about her. The full and complete truth.

 _Beth Greene_  
 _She Brought Great Joy and Happiness to the Lives of Others_  
 _And I Wish She Had Been Mine_

As deeply as that appealed to him, he knew that he'd never do it. That memorial was going to be about her, not him. He couldn't insert himself into her eternity like that. Even though he meant it with all the humility in the world, he was afraid that including it would be an arrogant thing to do. Arrogant to act like Beth would want to be remembered for being loved by Daryl Dixon. He still liked the first line, though. He still thought that it was fitting and appropriate and needed to be incorporated into whatever he created.

He was about to start going through a small cabinet hanging on the wall - the kind with lots of tiny drawers that was meant to house nails and screws and such but, given what he'd encountered so far in the workshop, he knew could really be housing anything - when he noticed a dusty photo taped to the adjacent pinboard. It was a picture of Herschel standing next to a tractor with a young Maggie in the seat pretending like she was driving. She was beaming at the camera with pride and he was beaming at her with the same expression. It was a delightful little shot, but he it didn't make him happy to see it at all. It made him feel like an asshole. Like a totally _thoughtless_ asshole.

Herschel.

Fucking _Herschel_.

He hadn't thought about _him_ , either. Herschel hadn't had a burial. He hadn't had a funeral. His body and his detached head had just been left to rot or be eaten outside the prison walls. He'd been reduced to parts and his family had simply fled. Daryl had no idea what Maggie had done to mourn her father, but his other daughter had been forced to mourn him in virtual silence: her only companion basically ignoring her tears. And when the worst of her grief had passed, and Daryl had finally realized that he loved her, Herschel had gotten a handful of wildflowers and a few seconds of quiet reflection beside another man's grave. A pathetically brief and impersonal ceremony - if such a word could even be applied - conducted over the remains of different _Beloved Father_.

And he deserved so much more than that.

He'd been a great man who'd raised a great family and he deserved to have his life memorialized. He deserved to be laid to rest - at least symbolically - next to the people who he'd loved. On the land that he'd loved. To be on his farm with his wife and his children for eternity.

He deserved to come home.

Unlike Beth and Jimmy, Daryl had no immediate idea about what he'd bury in Herschel's place. What object he could inter that would best represent the man. He had a whole house full of things to consider, though, and he imagined he could come up with something. And that would be a good project. A good tribute in its own right. To give Herschel the respect of devoting time and thought into making the right choice. And he figured that, even if he got it wrong, Herschel would still appreciate the effort. He'd appreciate that he'd tried, because he was Herschel and he'd just been that kind of man.

Which was exactly why he needed to be honored and remembered.

Turning away from the picture, Daryl started rooting through all those tiny drawers and investigating all the objects inside: evaluating them both for their utility and their aesthetics. Trying to imagine how he could use each item either constructively or decoratively. And, as he went through, he started thinking about what he could write on Herschel's grave. What inscription he could use other than that _Beloved Father_ that had been forced upon him at the funeral home. Something that he would have liked. Something that expressed something about who he'd been or what he'd believed.

There was the obvious temptation to choose a quote from the Bible. Something capturing the beauty of life or the nature of the sweet reward that lay beyond it. Something uplifting and powerful and with the kind of spiritual depth worthy of a man like Herschel. It was tempting both because it was conventional - in the sturdy, timeless sense that he thought that the man would have appreciated - and because Herschel had truly been a man of faith. He'd been a man of faith in a world where faith was tested every day. He'd believed in God and had held fast to his beliefs even in the face of Armageddon.

Daryl didn't know any scripture, though. He'd never gone to church or studied the Bible. He imagined that he could read it now - he certainly had the time - and try to find something appropriate. But he questioned whether he would get it right. He might have never read the Good Book, but he knew that the Bible was no Pride and Prejudice. It wasn't a light and easy read. It was challenging and had challenged far greater minds than his. For fucking _millennia_. And he worried that he'd misinterpret something because of that. That he'd find a quote that seemed beautiful and right, but that was actually insulting or wrong. A quote that he'd think were the heartfelt truths of a holy man but, had he understood the story better, would have known were actually the smooth-talking lies of fallen angel.

He wasn't just worried about his own literary interpretation skills, though. He wasn't just worried that he'd get a quote wrong because he lacked the intellect to get it right, he was worried because he knew that there wasn't just one right way to get it. He knew that, before the world fell apart, people argued about the meaning of God's good word all the time. There wasn't only one way for Christians to read the Bible and he had no idea which kind of Christian Herschel had been. Not in a way that meant anything to him. He knew that he'd been Southern Baptist, but Daryl didn't know what the central tenets of that denomination were or how it would have impacted his interpretation of that text. For all he knew, they thought one of Jesus's disciples was the Devil in disguise and, with his luck, that'd been the disciple he'd choose to quote.

So, as he moved on to explore yet another fucking cardboard box - a box whose contents were a mystery but which had once contained a space heater that was so old that he was sure that, if the rules still existed, it'd have violated every known fire code - he abandoned the scripture idea entirely. He started to think about his own memories of the man instead. Of their times together and what he'd witnessed. What he really knew and thought was worth knowing about Herschel.

And the first thing that he thought was that he'd been a tough son of a bitch. He'd held fast in hard times and been brave in a way that a man in his seventies really shouldn't have been. But there was no way that Daryl could put _He Was One Tough Son of a Bitch_ on Herschel's grave. Merle would have appreciated that kind of a tribute, but Herschel definitely wouldn't have. He wouldn't have wanted that to be the summation of his life and he wouldn't have wanted that written forever next to the graves of his wife and children.

And that was fair, Daryl thought, because he'd been so much more than tough. He'd been a deeply kind and compassionate man. A healer and a doctor who'd have sacrificed himself for his patients if he'd had to. Daryl thought about how he'd tended to people during the outbreak at the prison. How he'd put his own health at risk in order to make sure that everyone else had been cared for. How he'd told them all about the veterinary college and instructed them on exactly what to get. How he'd volunteered to go - had _wanted_ to go - but how Daryl had had to convince him not to.

 _Sooner or later, we always run._

And Herschel hadn't been able to run. His leg - or lack of a leg - would have jeopardized the safety of the whole group, so he'd reluctantly stayed behind. While that whole exchange had been quite literal at the time, he realized now that it had been so metaphorically true, too.

Herschel hadn't run.

He hadn't run and he hadn't hid himself away. He'd stood his fucking ground. He'd been a solid man, a dependable man, a pillar of fortitude in a crumbling world. When times had gotten tough, he'd been there. He'd never shirked his responsibilities. He'd never left a friend or a family member behind. And, even with with a sword to his neck, he'd held his head high. He hadn't even run away in his _mind_. He'd stayed present until the brutal end: facing his own death with an honesty that Daryl could only hope to aspire to.

And that, he thought, was exactly what he could say. It was just three simple words, but Herschel had been a simple man and he thought that he might appreciate the brevity.

 _Herschel Greene_  
 _He Never Ran_

Part of him worried that that might be interpreted as a cruel joke about his leg, but he figured that no one else who ever read that would know that he'd been an amputee. And, if Herschel or anyone that had loved him could read it, they'd understand the sincerity behind the expression. They'd know that it was heartfelt, because they'd know that it was true.

They'd know that Herschel never fucking ran.

When Daryl had first rolled up on the property and seen all the damage that the herd and time had wrought, he'd been excited by the idea that he could fix things up. That he could leave the farm in better condition than he'd found it. And it had been a compulsion of his ever since. He'd done tons of work on the house and on the land. Work that he'd known, deep down, hadn't really needed to be done. Though his efforts had provided some measure of comfort and security, they'd ultimately been meaningless. It didn't really matter if there was a branch on the roof or a downed section of barbed wire in the West field.

At the end of the day, it didn't really matter.

It mattered like _hell_ that the Greenes were remembered, though. That mattered more than anything left in Daryl's world. Building memorials for Beth and for Herschel was nothing like building a fence to protect an access road. It wasn't a practical act that, actually, wasn't really practical at all. It was a spiritual act that was, in fact, deeply spiritual. Deeply meaningful.

And he wanted to do it so _fucking_ badly.

Wanted to do it far more than he wanted to fix up the property and he wanted _that_ on a level that he wasn't even able to understand.

The sun was setting, though, and he didn't have enough light to keep exploring the workshop, so he decided to head back into the house to think more about the projects that lay ahead. He was going to go into Beth's room and start reading _The Language of Flowers_ by lantern-light in his second favorite place under her window. Other than the first night, he hadn't allowed himself to lay down in her bed in the evenings. That still felt too intimate and too close to the notion of sleep and truly sharing a bed. Sharing it in all the ways that he wanted to. The window would be fine, though, because it was the book that was important. He wanted to find a way to capture her spirit - capture her beautiful spirit in all those beautiful blossoms - even more than he wanted to lie on her bed. He was so looking forward to it that he practically sprinted the short distance from the workshop across the yard and up the front porch: racing to get his hands on that book.

And he was so focused on that goal - and so used to his solitary little existence - that he had no idea that he was being watched as he moved.

No idea that his hurried journey towards horticultural enlightenment was witnessed by someone sitting quietly in the shadows of the distant treeline.

….

Beth Greene shared a lot of similarities with her father. They had many of the same qualities and characteristics. Had the same faith and the same beliefs. Had the same hopes and, sometimes, the same humor. They had a lot in common, but there was one trait that they didn't share.

Herschel Greene never ran, but Beth Greene most _certainly_ did.

Beth Greene had run from Grady the first chance that she'd got. She'd run like a bat out of fucking _hell_ and she hadn't once looked back. She'd run like the Devil had been chasing her because, as far as she'd been concerned, he had been. Or, at least, he could have been. The officers at Grady could have been coming after her and they were as good as the Devil. And, if that Devil had been after her, she'd been determined to make him catch her first. No, she hadn't been about to let him catch her. She'd make him shoot her speeding body in the goddamn back. She hadn't been willing to stop and she hadn't been willing to turn around. Not even for the Devil.

Because Beth Greene fucking _ran_.

She hadn't planned to, though. At least, not when she had. She still wasn't fully recovered from her brain injury - still wasn't fully ready to be out in that brutal world alone - but the opportunity had presented itself and she hadn't been able to resist taking it. She'd spent months trying to come up with a way to escape and every scheme that she'd devised had had huge risks. They'd all been both physically dangerous and, no matter how hard she'd tried to get around it, had all relied on some degree of luck. Most often, a _very large_ degree of luck. They'd all been exactly what they were: the strategies of the truly desperate.

Last ditch efforts to live a life worth living or to die trying, knowing that the second outcome was the most likely one.

But then last week had happened and everything had changed. There had been a flu going around the hospital for days and half of the officers and orderlies had been completely laid out by it. Unlike the outbreak at the prison, it hadn't been life-threatening, but it had been severely incapacitating for everyone who had taken ill. With half the staff - voluntary and otherwise - out of commission, a lot of jobs had been tasked to people who had never done them before or had simply been ignored entirely. All those protocols and patrols that had been keeping her prisoner had started to crumble.

The machine had been breaking down.

And then one night, as Daryl had been trying to force himself out of her bed after reading _Pride and Prejudice_ , the machine had stopped functioning completely. Probably not for very long, but for long enough. Long enough for her to know it was her best and only real chance to escape.

Long enough for her to make a run for it.

A team of officers who had been working security outside had gotten attacked by walkers and, despite being painfully understaffed, some of the few remaining cops on duty had been sent out to help them. Grady was still a terrible place to be for the prisoners, but after Dawn's death a new camaraderie had developed among the officers and they'd left their posts to go and aid their fallen brothers. (One of whom had been in a relationship with one of the cops on the ground, which - Beth suspected - had probably also factored into the decision to go.) Whatever the rationale behind the rescue mission had been, though, it had provided her with an entire side of the building that was unguarded and with no one who'd be looking for her for a decent window of time. And there had been so much confusion as to who'd been performing what roles, that she'd imagined that - even when the officers returned - it would still take them awhile to notice that she was missing.

So, despite still having a limp and not having assembled any provisions for the journey, she'd run. She'd grabbed a laundry bag from the linen closet, walked into the room of one of the sleeping patients, taken his uneaten food off of his tray - an unopened tin of fruit, a pudding cup, and single-serving size of insanely stale cereal - and thrown it into the bag. She'd looked around for anything that she could use as a weapon, but the people that ran Grady hadn't been fools and they'd kept most of those things under lock and key. No scalpels, no needles, and - because of her - no scissors. She'd finally settled on the small fire-extinguisher fastened to the wall, figuring that she could bash someone's brain in pretty good with that. It probably wouldn't be enough to kill them, but it would definitely do some damage and maybe give her a chance to get away. She'd thrown it in the bag, too, not wanting to draw attention by walking the halls with a shiny red fire extinguisher and assuming that she'd have been able to swing it at someone just as effectively in the bag as out of it. Slinging the whole thing over her shoulder, she'd walked out of the room as casually as possible, like she really had just been heading off to the laundry room to do another mundane chore. But, instead of heading to the laundry room, she'd headed completely unnoticed to the Eastern stairwell. One of the only two doors into and out of Grady: a door that was constantly guarded but - because of miraculous series of events - wasn't.

And in less than two minutes, Beth Greene had been breathing fresh air for the first time in ten months.

And in less than two seconds, she'd been forcing her lungs to take in every atom of that fresh air that they possible could as she'd run her heart out through the darkening streets of downtown Atlanta: determined to get as far from Grady as possible, as fast as possible.

No looking back.

She'd only been looking ahead and she'd only been looking out for two things: walkers and signs for I-85. She still had gaps in her memory, but she'd thanked God every day for the almost three months since she'd first remembered the way home. She'd remembered Senoia long before that, but she'd had absolutely no idea how to get there. They'd kept local maps in the officers workstation, so she'd known that there had been a way to find out. But she'd had no legitimate reason to ever be in there, so finding that information had always been a risk. A risk of getting caught where she hadn't been meant to be and an even bigger risk of them figuring out _why_ she'd been in there in the first place. So when she'd remembered the first road trip that she'd taken with Maggie after she'd left for college - when they'd driven to Atlanta together, just the two of them, to see an afternoon concert in the park - she'd started to cry. Both because it had been such a fond memory and because she'd been the navigator. She'd been jealous that she couldn't drive yet and so had thrown herself into the role of road guide. And she'd remembered the route clearly. She'd remembered it clearly because it had been so easy that she'd been disappointed that so little navigation had been required of her.

They'd taken Main Street to GA-74 North to I-85 North. That had been it. Three steps and 40 miles and they'd been in Atlanta.

And all she'd had to do was reverse that. She didn't know if she'd ever known how to hotwire a car, but she definitely didn't know how to now. She'd have to make the trip on foot - which meant that she'd be too exposed and too vulnerable to _literally_ take those roads - but getting to I-85 had been her first mission.

Find the highway and find some way to follow alongside it under cover.

After running for what had felt like an hour, but had probably only been ten minutes, she'd finally seen that beautiful blue sign highlighting the upcoming exit for I-85. And, if she hadn't been a creature of pure adrenaline at that point, she would have fallen on her knees and wept in joy. But she hadn't. She'd hadn't cried - she'd barely even smiled -and she _definitely_ hadn't slowed down. If anything, she'd started running even faster.

Faster than she'd ever thought possible, a fire extinguisher bouncing against her back with every pulse-pounding step.

And that had begun the journey that had taken over a week. Or, at least, she thought it had been over a week. Keeping track of the time hadn't been her highest priority. It hadn't been a priority at all. Finding food, finding water, finding a real weapon. Those had been her priorities. Steering clear of walkers and Grady officers and Governor wannabes. Those had been her priorities.

Not falling on her limping ass from exhaustion because she hadn't walked farther than the length of a hospital hallway in almost a year. _That_ had been her priority.

And it had taken everything she'd had to make it. She'd gotten lucky raiding a few homes: scrounging up some canned goods and a wicked meat cleaver for protection, along with a real backpack to keep her meager possessions in and a large bottle for storing water. She'd outfitted herself out reasonably well and felt like, for having started with nothing, she'd ended up with more or less everything that she'd needed to make the journey. It had pushed her to her limit, though, and by the time that she'd crossed over a backroad that she'd recognized as belonging to one of her neighbor's farms, she finally had broken down and cried. Collapsed by the side of that road and cried tears of relief and happiness. Tears of fatigue and tears of _fear_.

Tears because it had all become real. Truly real. She'd been about to come home again and she'd had no idea what she was going to find. She had one chance - _one chance_ \- of ever finding her family again and the farm was it. If they weren't there, she had nowhere else to look.

No place other than the destroyed prison that she'd known there was _no way_ that they'd have ever gone back to.

And that had been terrifying. Terrifying to know that her dream was either going to be realized or it was going to be dashed, but one way or another, the dream was going to be gone. She wasn't going to be able to live in a world of hope anymore. She was going to live in the real world. And, as she'd sat by that backroad crying, she'd prayed to God - for the thousandth time - that those worlds would be one and the same.

As she'd neared the property, it had become immediately clear that someone had been there since they'd fled. Someone had _settled_ there. At some point, at least, and for quite awhile. She'd walked inside the treeline and had been able to see hundreds of neat yards of barbed wire and straightened fences: things that she'd known had been destroyed by the herd. Or, at least, things that she'd _thought_ that she'd known had been destroyed by the herd. And there were barriers in places where she'd been almost positive there hadn't been before, too. There were rows of wooden spikes and fortifications against key access points to the property. She'd gotten excited when she'd seen those. She'd gotten excited when she'd seen the spikes because they had reminded her of the ones that they'd used at the prison. She'd tried to temper her enthusiasm, though, by telling herself that it was a pretty basic defense method and that a lot of people probably used them. Plus, the section that she'd been able to see had been at most half-complete and that hadn't seemed particularly encouraging, either. Finishing it wouldn't have been that big of a project and she hadn't been able to imagine her family leaving it undone. Which, in her mind, had indicated one of three things: she'd just happened to catch them on the very day that they'd decided to make that a two-day project (which seemed really unlikely), her family had been there at some point but they'd been forced to leave in a rush for some reason (which seemed painfully likely), or her family had never been there at all and that was someone else's handiwork (which seemed the likeliest of all.)

The only way to know for sure was to watch the place. To sit in the woods and to see who, if anyone, came out of the house.

So that's what she'd been doing for the past couple hours. She'd been sitting and watching and she hadn't seen a damn thing. She was in a trance staring at a completely unchanging scene when, suddenly, a man ran from the workshop, dashed across the yard and up the front porch: charging right through the front door like he owned the place. It had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly that, by the time she really registered what was happening, he was already in the house.

In _her_ house.

So someone _was_ still living there. Someone was still living there and she had no clue who it was. She'd been too far away and too zoned out to pick up any detail and he'd been too fast for her to see his face. She'd only seen enough to know that he was a relatively large man with dark hair and that he'd seemed fair-skinned. And there were a few people in her family who fit that description, she thought, but probably half of the living male population fit it, too. That could have been Sheriff Rick Grimes from King County and it could have been Officer Matt Reynolds from Grady Memorial. She knew that it _wasn't_ Officer Reynolds. Her mind failed her at times, and she lived in fear of being found, but she wasn't crazy. The point was the same, though.

That could have been _anyone_.

That could have been anyone and she silently cursed the fact that there was no way to get closer to the property without being seen. No way to investigate the situation any more without taking an unacceptable risk. There was nothing she could do but continue to watch and wait. Watch and wait and hope that the mystery man showed himself again. And that, this time, he strayed farther from the house. Or, at least, lingered long enough for her to get a good look. Long enough for her to know if that really was her house that she was staring at.

Or if it was _his_ house now.

Because if it was _his_ house now - whoever he was - Beth Greene was going to run like hell again.

* * *

 _Yay! Daryl's in her house thinking about how to make her a great tombstone and she's in the woods thinking about who the hell's in her house. Nothing but a big empty field separates them now._

 _Finally, right?_

 _I think that this story has more than run its course and I'm pretty sure that a lot of you feel the same. So, I won't say whether or not the course of true love will run smoothly here, but I will say that it will run quickly. I've made some mistakes with this and I'm really ready to move on. Try to take the lessons I've (hopefully) learned and start something new. Something better. So there will be one or two more chapters and that'll be that. We'll close the book on this book that probably should have been about a third shorter if I'd had any editorial sense or known what I was doing! :)_

 _Thanks for reading and for hanging in there with me on my rocky maiden voyage in writing fiction! For my American readers, I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving, and for my non-American readers, I hope you have a Happy Fourth Thursday in November! It's a really big deal for us and - if you can believe it - we eat even more than we normally do! Really good stuff, too. So, if you can, eat something nice with someone you care about and think about something that you're thankful for this Thursday. It's fun thing to do no matter what country you're from! :)_


	11. Chapter 11

_Hello dear readers! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving (or just a great week if you're not in the U.S.)! Once again, thanks to all of you for sticking with this story and a special thanks to those who subscribe/leave comments/kudos/etc. Your support really means a lot to me. :) (Speaking of which, Shy40 from , please read my endnotes, okay?)_

 _As you all know by now, I'm insanely long-winded and I discovered writing this chapter that I'd been living in a dream world when I told you that it might be the last one. As much as I wanted to, there was no way that I could wrap this story up in one chapter. So I wanted to let you know up front that this ISN'T the last chapter. So please bear that in mind as your reading it and getting worried about the pacing. There will definitely be one more chapter and maybe an epilogue or something. I'm determined to finish this by the end of the year, but no amount of determination can overcome my excruciatingly detailed writing style. I just can't help my rambling self..._

 _And yet you keep reading...why?_

 _I have no answer to that question, but I'm really grateful that you do! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint you too much after investing so much time in this story. I say "too much" because, let's be honest, almost all of you are going to be disappointed to one degree or another. Not because this is bad - I'm not trying to put myself down - but just because the reunion is probably the one thing that you've all imagined - in this story and in so many others - and you all probably have a way that you want it to go. And, statistically speaking, it's unlikely that my way is your way. (I'm giving this speech to myself as much as to you. I've been so anxious about publishing this part, so I just want to get the obvious letdown element out in the open, you know? You all haven't been imagining what was in Beth's junk drawer since Coda. You've been imagining THIS. And you've all imagined it in your own brilliant and unique ways. Ways that mean a lot to you. Ways that won't be this way. So that's just the nature of this little beast. I'm trying to write something that you've actually written in your head before. I'm not introducing a new idea to you. I'm trying to compete with an idea that already exists in your mind. And you probably REALLY LIKE the idea that exists in your mind. Because it's yours and that makes it awesome. Which is exactly how it should be.)_

 _So, here's the idea that exists in MY mind. It'll be less awesome than yours, but I hope you still enjoy it. Thanks again for reading! :)_

* * *

Daryl had never been a great sleeper. He often stayed up incredibly late into the night and only fell into a state that others would call _asleep_ when his body simply succumbed to sheer exhaustion. That had changed since he'd come to the farm, though. His sleep there was sometimes still fitful - still disturbed by nightmares and by memories that he could only _dream_ were nightmares - but he slept more soundly and on a more human schedule in that house than he ever had before.

But last night he'd return to his nocturnal ways and stayed up almost until dawn: completely immersed in _The Language of Flowers_.

He'd started reading from his perch under Beth's window but had eventually moved to her desk because he hadn't been just _reading_ the book, he'd been truly _studying_ it. He'd been studying every word contained in its 314 pages - searching through its pictures and stories and legends to find the perfect blossoms for Beth - and he'd wanted to take notes. He'd needed to make lists of all of the possibilities, record the most powerful passages, organize all of his swirling thoughts.

And he hadn't been able to mark up the book itself.

That was _her_ book and he'd been unwilling to damage it in any way. Wouldn't pull out that highlighter from her junk drawer and slash its yellow ink across the paper. Wouldn't dog-ear the pages that he'd wanted to return to later. So, he'd gotten up from his perch, moved the lantern over to her desk and, for the first time in his entire life, he'd acted like a real student. He'd taken a small stack of blank notebook paper from her bottom drawer and one of her nicer pens and started filling up page after page.

Page after page of quotes and notes and his own reflections on her. Snipets of stories and anecdotes that explained why that one blossom that stood for friendship was so much better than the eleven other blossoms that did the same. Little notes that read _Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith_ next to a comment about using violets to represent _loyalty_ because, unlike the other three flowers with a similar meaning, those stood for _faithfulness_ and _devotion_ , too. Reminders not to fall for the allure of the Larkspur, which he'd been delighted to discover on p. 74 had stood for _beautiful spirit_ , because on p. 167 he'd later learned that it could also represent _fickleness_ and _infidelity_. Notes telling him not to use the gorgeous white lily - which had so perfectly stood for _purity_ and _majesty_ and, apparently, was supposed to send the message to the receiver that _it's Heavenly to be with you_ \- unless he actually painted the thing white, because lilies of other colors said entirely different things.

Things like _falsity_ and _pride_ that could never be associated with her.

And he hadn't just written down words. Hadn't just written down more words - both the author's and his own - than he'd written in decades. He'd drawn sketches, too. Sketch after clumsy sketch that had made him laugh and think that, once again, Beth had found a way to make him feel better about his own limitations. Because, as much as he'd struggled at first, they'd all been at least identifiable as _flowers_. His works might have lacked her creative spark, but they'd lacked her spirit of complete befuddlement, too.

They'd been no _Coconut Dance at the County Fair._

And he'd filled pages after page with those as well. Trying to see just what he'd be able to execute. Would he be able to pull of the orange blossom, which meant _eternal love_ and sent the message to the receiver that _your purity equals your loveliness?_ Or would it come off looking like the mock orange blossom, which would be unacceptable because it meant _deceit?_ And how would he put all the flowers that he picked together? How would he construct that bouquet? Because Beth hadn't just been a simple collection of all those amazing qualities. Those amazing qualities had all been organized _around_ something. They'd all come together to form this majestic creature who had been even greater than the sum of her parts. And those flowers would need to do that, too. He couldn't just throw them all scattershot on a piece of wood. There needed to be an underlying design - a bigger and even more beautiful whole - and he'd spent hours sketching out the possibilities.

He'd never done anything like that. Never sketched anything other than maps or building plans or purely utilitarian things. Simple drawings with straight lines that had been intended solely to convey information, not impart any beauty. And, while he hadn't thought that he had a particular talent for capturing the flowers, by the end of the night he'd become confident that - given enough practice - he'd be able to do it successfully. As he'd imagined with her fictitious engagement ring, he'd resigned himself to the fact that he'd probably have to attempt the carvings multiple times until he got them right. But he was more than happy to do that - more than happy to put in all that work - and had just been relieved by the fact that he could make up with effort for what he lacked in natural ability.

As the sky had entered that light grey twilight signalling the impending dawn, he'd finally forced himself away from the desk. His mind had still been racing - still been deeply engaged in the project - but he'd known that he'd had to try to get some rest. He'd argued that he'd needed it for his still recovering health, but he'd ultimately submitted to doing it in the hope that inspiration would strike him in his sleep. In the hope that, if he didn't dream of _Nurse Greene_ or _Mrs. Dixon_ , he might dream of a beautiful way to honor her. That his brain would continue to work the problem and the perfect design that he hadn't been able to put on paper would somehow be revealed to him in those unconscious hours.

Given the way the sun was illuminating his room as he painfully opened his eyes, he knew that he'd slept at least until noon. As he'd hoped, his mind had continued to obsess over Beth's shrine in his sleep, but he hadn't had any grand insights. Nevertheless, he was as engaged in the project as he had been when he'd gone to bed and was eager to get back to her desk. Get back to her desk and get back to _work_. It was his last day of antibiotics, though, so he needed to go downstairs and get his pills along with their requisite food first. Have a light breakfast - a _really_ light breakfast because his stockpile was running low - before letting himself do what he actually wanted to do.

It was a beautiful day and, after taking his medicine, he decided to go and enjoy what would pass for his breakfast outside. Sit on Tommy's porch swing and try to draw some inspiration from that man's craftsmanship. Soak up a little bit of the magic that had allowed him to make something beautiful for someone beautiful. So, he opened up the door and walked out to his favorite spot on the farm - his favorite spot anywhere on Earth other than Beth's room and his - and started to eat.

...

It had, simply put, been a long and frightening night for Beth Greene.

Every hour that had passed, she'd become less and less convinced that she'd known the man in her house. Less and less convinced that anyone from her family was in there. Because an hour or so after the man had run into the house - as soon as the sun had gone down - one light had come on inside. Only one light and it had been coming from her bedroom.

From _her_ bedroom.

Or, maybe, Maggie's. Given the angle of the house and her position in the treeline, she hadn't been positive that it was hers, but there had been no question that it had been one of theirs. The light had been on upstairs on the girls' side of the house.

And that had made no sense at all.

It had certainly made no sense if there was a group - if that was her _family_ \- living in there. If there was more than one person living in there, and they felt comfortable enough to have one light on, surely they would have had more? With her room lit up like that, the house was already a beacon to man and walker, so one more light wouldn't have made a difference in terms of safety. Unless they'd only _had_ one light for some reason but, if that had been the case, why would they be using it in her or Maggie's room? Wouldn't they all be huddled in the living room? Be in the biggest, most comfortable space? The space where you would be if you were awake and wanted a light? Instead of in a bedroom where you'd be sleeping and want it to be dark?

Which had led her to believe it was only one person. Just that one lone man. And she hadn't been able to imagine anyone leaving her family. Couldn't imagine any of them leaving the others behind. Unless he was the only one left. Unless everyone else had been killed or captured or something truly horrible had happened. But, even so, why would he be in her room? Or in Maggie's room? Why wouldn't he be in her parent's room or in Shawn's?

And at some point after midnight, a horrible thought had occurred to her. An absolutely horrible thought that fit that scenario too perfectly. Fit it in a way that pierced her to her core and made her actually hope it was a stranger.

It was Glenn.

Maggie was dead. Something horrible had happened to Maggie or maybe something horrible had happened to everyone. Her family was dead and Glenn was the only one still standing. Or her family had fled for some reason and, heartbroken over Maggie's loss, he'd refused to follow. He was all alone and he was living in Maggie's room. Maybe a room that had been _their_ room for awhile. For the weeks or months that had passed before whatever happened happened.

Fuck, what if that was Glenn?

Her vocabulary had become increasingly vulgar over her months at Grady, but the string of _fucks_ and _shits_ and tears that had followed that thought had been out-of-character even for the new, less proper, her. It had killed her because it actually made more sense than a random man choosing to spend the night in a random girl's room. And Glenn fit the admittedly vague description of the man she'd seen, too. He might have been a bit scrawny when he'd first come to the farm, but he'd really bulked up over the years. He was a relatively large guy now and was definitely dark-haired and fair-skinned. And he was quick as well. She's been sure that part of her impression of the man's speed had been due to the fact that she'd been caught so unaware, but she knew that the guy had been _moving_. And she associated that kind of speed - that kind of agility- with Glenn.

It had been a long, dark night of horrible thoughts. Horrible thoughts that had lead her to believe that she'd either found the only member of her family who was left alive - probably a shell of a man after losing the only woman who he could ever love - or she'd found some strange man with a weird thing for girl's rooms and she'd have to run again. Run aimlessly towards nothing and no one. Vulnerable and alone.

Probably forever.

Probably for a _very short_ forever.

And those feelings had only gotten worse as the day had dawned and dragged on. Her family had been a lot of things, but they'd never been lazy. She hadn't been able to imagine a house full of her people lounging the morning away. No one stepping outside to grab some fresh air, complete a chore, do some kind of sweep.

Complete that unfinished row of spikes.

They just wouldn't do that. And the only consolation that she'd been able to take from that was her belief that no _group_ would do it, either. That her impression from the night before about there only being one man in the house had been correct. And that had been a terrible thought, but - on a very primitive level - it had at least offered some small boost to her fragile sense of security. She was only up against one possible adversary. She'd felt reasonably well-hidden from her position in the treeline, but evidence of a well-functioning group of unknown people living in her house would have been terrifying. At the end of the day - or, really, at the end of an endless night and far too long morning - that had all been cold comfort, though. As far as she'd been concerned, no story that had only one man living in that house had a good outcome.

It was either a potentially threatening stranger or it was an emotionally destroyed Glenn.

One way or another, some part of her heart was going to break when that man finally stepped outside.

So, when the front door opened and he walked through it some time around noon, she hadn't been remotely prepared for who she saw. It wasn't a stranger. And it wasn't Glenn. He could have tried his whole life, but Glenn could have never grown a beard like that. The beard hadn't registered with her when she'd seen him running across the yard, but his hair was so long - longer than she ever remembered seeing it on him - that it must have obscured it. He sat down on her Granddaddy's porch swing and, when he looked up towards the woods, she knew for sure that he was who she'd thought he was with that first loping stride.

She'd know that face anywhere. Even covered in a grizzled beard and blurred by a hundred yards.

And he was, without a doubt, the last person who she'd ever expected to see there. And, after an initial rush of relief and joy, she almost lost it entirely. Because she remembered every conclusion that she'd drawn about why there would be only one man in the house and knew, without a doubt, that she'd been right. He was the last person that would have ever voluntarily left her family. He was the fiercest and the most loyal of them all. And, if he was alone, it was because they were gone.

They were gone and he was all that was left.

And he would have fought to the bloody end for them, too. Would have done anything to stop it. Whatever happened, it must have been awful for him. Awful enough for him to shut himself away on a farm that he had no sentimental attachment to at all. That wasn't Glenn locked away pining for Maggie. He had no reason to want to be in her house other than, maybe, because it had been the last place that he'd been with his family.

Their last home.

So, she forced back her tears and her heartache. Tried to put it away, if only for awhile. It was going to be hard enough to return from the dead. To walk up to him and tell him that she was alive and expect him to handle that. Expect him to believe that he wasn't crazy. That he wasn't seeing a ghost again. She couldn't ask him to console her, too. Not after everything that he'd seen. Not after everything that he'd been through.

Not given the man who he was.

Taking a few steadying breaths, she calmed herself and prepared to make her presence known. She'd debated how to do that all night and had decided that the simplest option was the best. She couldn't say anything to draw attention - couldn't yell _Hey, guess who's still alive?!_ \- so she had to rely on her body language. She'd walk up to the house with her hands high above her head: a gesture that made it clear that she wasn't a walker and, hopefully, that she wasn't a threat. And she'd do it slowly. Slowly but deliberately. Make sure that he didn't feel like he was being rushed by someone - make sure that he had time to think and process what he was seeing before acting - but also make sure that her movements seemed purposeful enough that it underscored her humanity. She attached her meat cleaver to a loop on the back of her backpack so that he wouldn't even be able to see that she had a weapon. She would have nothing in her hands or on her hips and, she hoped, would appear as non-threatening as possible.

Slinging her pack on, she raised her hands in the air, and started her journey toward the porch: knowing that he'd spot her as soon as she took those first few steps outside of the treeline.

...

When Daryl saw a small figure stride out of the woods, his heart began to race. His mind had been completely lost in the world of flowers and, in an instant, all that mental energy focused in on a single speck in the distance and everything it represented. Because he knew right away that that was a living person. Their cloths seemed to be smeared in a fair amount of blood, but it clearly wasn't a walker. No walker approached a building in surrender.

Or in the _appearance_ of surrender.

That's where his mind went first and why his pulse began to pound. For all he knew, there were a dozen fuckers lurking in the woods and this girl - yeah, as she got closer, he was pretty sure it was girl - was some kind of bait. That she was approaching him under the innocent guise of needing aid - being that _damsel-in-distress_ that Beth had teased about - just to get him out in the open. He had no idea what was going on but he knew one terrible thing: he didn't have his bow. He'd left it inside, having had no use for it since he'd injured his hand, and he only had Beth's knife at his hip for protection.

Not enough.

Though he hadn't fired it in weeks, and wasn't sure how well he even could, he knew the bow was intimidating if nothing else and he ran inside to grab it from the hallway. With a fair amount of effort, he loaded a bolt, and raised into a ready position. He'd have at least that one shot and he could always just use it as a blunt force weapon after that if he had to. But, hopefully, he thought, as he tried to steady himself for battle - for a battle that he hadn't fought in way too fucking long, a battle that the quiet and gentle life of the farm had left him completely unready for - he wouldn't need to use it all.

He very briefly considered just making a fucking run for it. Heading out the back and not taking the chance of getting caught up with another Joe and his Merry Band of assholes. But he dismissed that thought quickly. He wasn't willing to leave Beth's things behind, wasn't willing to leave the farm behind without making his memorials, and he wasn't willing to risk the fact that it might not be a trap. That it really might just be some poor girl in need of help. And if that were true, he couldn't just leave her. And, honestly, even if she was being used as bait, he couldn't really leave her, either. There was a good chance that that wouldn't have been her choice and any group that would use a girl like that was probably willing to do even worse things to her, too.

Whatever this was, he couldn't run away from it.

Herschel wouldn't have run away from it.

Beth wouldn't have run away from it.

So, he turned around and headed out the door with as much confidence as he was able to fake - which, after a lifetime of faking confidence, was a pretty fair amount - and started walking straight towards the girl. He was looking at the treeline as much as he was looking at her: keeping his head _on a swivel_ as Merle's military pals used to say and constantly scanning the whole scene. Trying to take it all in as his feet ate up the yardage and he got closer and closer to the girl.

He couldn't make out her face, but her body language didn't indicate any fear about his offensive approach or his raised weapon. And, even though a normal person would have been expected to stop when they'd realized that they'd wandered onto an armed stranger's property, she didn't. She didn't stop, she didn't slow down, and she didn't start moving any faster, either. She wasn't afraid of him and she wasn't afraid of anything behind her. She wasn't being chased out of the woods. She was _choosing_ to keep walking towards the crazed man with a crossbow.

And that _really_ worried him.

Why wasn't she scared and why wasn't she fucking _stopping?_

When he finally got close enough to see her face, he was the one who stopped. Stopped dead in his tracks, let his crossbow fall to his side, and just stared at her as she continued to slowly close the distance between them.

Beth.

It was Beth.

But, of course, it wasn't.

It wasn't Beth at all. He was seeing shit again. He was having visions again, just like he'd had with Merle. Just like Rick had had with Lori. Merle had done this to him for years and he used to wish that Beth would do it to him, too. Used to wish - with everything that he'd had - that she would come to him in a vision that felt just as real as the ones that he'd had of his brother. Just as real but far, far more welcome. He'd wished for that for so long but he didn't wish for it anymore. He wished for her to come to him in his _dreams_. He wanted her to do that all the time. _Asked_ her to do that all the time. To come visit him in that netherworld - in that space between realities - where he could take comfort and meaning and enjoyment from her presence, but where he never had to fear it. Never had to be worried about it. Because the substance of dreams was unknown and he could believe whatever he wanted to believe about them. He no longer wished for her to come to him when he was _awake_ , though. To see visions of her like he had with Merle. He didn't want that because he'd had visions of Merle even when Merle was still alive. He'd known that those visions had been nothing but the workings of sick mind. Those visions had been lies. And during the worst parts of his grief, he'd have happily taken those lies - happily lived in that world of delusion - but after finding some kind of peace of the farm, he no longer wanted that. Because he actually had a real Beth in his life now. She wasn't living and breathing but she wasn't a lie. The Beth in that house - the Beth he talked to and teased and told stories about - was real.

And he wanted things to stay that way.

As she got within twenty feet of him and threw him a beaming smile, he snapped out of his trance and quickly raised his weapon again. It suddenly occurred to him that, if he was having visions, he had no idea what those visions were. Just because that wasn't really Beth, didn't mean that wasn't really a _girl._ That there wasn't really someone walking towards him. That all the dangers that he'd imagined before weren't all still entirely possible.

Maybe the fuckers in the forest just had a bait-girl that looked like Beth and his sick little mind was falling for the illusion.

The girl finally stopped walking and started speaking just loudly enough to be heard across the distance,

"It's me," she said gently, her smile falling as she adopted a more neutral - more calming - expression. She kept her arms raised as she continued, "I know. I know it seems crazy. I know you think I died back there in Atlanta. But I didn't. They found me in the back of that ambulance and they treated me. I got better and I escaped. I'm alive. I'm not an hallucination, okay? I'm not a ghost. I'm real."

She could look like Beth - his sick little mind could be making her look like Beth - but there's no way that a bait-girl could have known that story. That those could have been the _real_ words coming out of a _real_ girl's mouth. So was he hallucinating her speech, too? Was he hearing things as well as seeing them?

If so, then why was he hearing them like _that?_ In _that_ voice?

That voice that sounded so much like her, but wasn't _her_. That voice that was still light and sweet, but had a roughness to it. Like she'd been singing in a smoky lounge all night. It was beautiful and it was Beth, but it wasn't _Beth_.

It was off.

"Who are you?," he demanded, not lowering his bow an inch. If he was hallucinating, her answer wouldn't really matter, of course. Wouldn't prove anything except that his mind knew who he wanted her to be. But that voice threw him off. That voice made him worry that it wasn't an hallucination.

Not entirely.

That voice made him worry that some part of it - the _non-Beth_ part of it - was real. That that really was a real girl - with a real group lurking somewhere behind her - setting some kind of trap. And maybe, he thought, if he just kept her talking then he could hear what she was _really_ saying. She'd say something that was obviously wrong or out-of-place and he'd catch on. Or his brain would just finally snap the _fuck_ out of this.

Whatever _this_ was.

She smiled softly at him, almost as if she'd been expecting the command, and tilted her head slightly.

"I'm Beth Greene," she said simply, her smile growing wider. His heart stopped and his bow finally did drop just a few inches. "I'm Beth Greene and this is my farm. This is where I grew up and this is where I met you. This is where we all became a family. This is where it all began."

He dropped his bow entirely and started to cry. Because he believed her. He shouldn't have, but he did. He'd think about that moment later - he'd think about that moment for the rest of his life - and would never be able to figure out what convinced him that she wasn't an hallucination and that she wasn't another girl. He'd argue that maybe it was the way that she'd cocked her head to the side, the way that she'd said her name, the way that she'd constructed that simple narrative of who she was, where they were, and what had brought them together. In the cold light of day, none of that was truly convincing, though. Every part of that could have been his mind playing tricks. There simply was no logical reason as to why he believed her in that moment.

He just believed her.

He just did.

"I'm Beth Greene," she repeated almost laughingly, overjoyed by his reaction: by his obvious acknowledgement of her reality and the truth of her resurrection. She lowered her arms and started walking quickly towards him.

"It's taken me a while," she added with a true laugh, "but I know who I am and I know who you are, too."

When she got within a couple feet of him, he closed the distance and pulled her into a fierce embrace. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, inhaled that sweet fragrance that was Beth's signature scent - the scent that he'd thought that he'd never experience again - and wept. He wept because he'd _believed_ that she was real before, but now he _knew_. Smelling her, he fucking _knew_. She started to cry, too, and he treasured every quiver and shake of her chest against his own. Every movement that proved that she was alive.

She was fucking _alive._

He had no idea what to say. He had no words at all. She did, though. And one of them pierced him to his very soul. One word - just four little letters - that destroyed his newfound bliss and shredded his freshly healed heart.

"I've missed you," she whispered in his neck through her tears. "I've missed you so bad, Rick. You don't even know."

Rick.

 _I've missed you so bad, Rick._

Rick.

 _I've missed you so bad, Rick._

Rick.

She thought that he was fucking _Rick._

She hadn't really come back to him. Not fully. She hadn't really come back to him because she didn't even know who he _was._ That bullet had torn through her brain and wreaked havoc with her memories - twisted things around - and she thought that he was Rick. She knew that they were family, she recognized him, but she didn't have the story straight at all. Her beautiful, precious mind had been damaged. It had been damaged and it had forgotten Daryl Dixon.

Of course it had, he thought.

 _Of course, you've forgotten me._

He literally collapsed onto his knees with that revelation, surprising them both. He hadn't lessened his hold of her any, though, and she'd come right down with him: still locked tightly in his desperate embrace. After her initial shock, Beth just assumed that he'd been overwhelmed by the whole experience and let him continue to cry in her arms. She'd already assumed that it would be difficult for anyone to handle her unexpected resurrection but now, believing that everyone else in their family was gone, she figured her re-appearance must be even more impactful.

He was no longer going to be alone, she thought.

He was so relieved that he was no longer going to be _alone._

If Daryl had had no idea what to say to her before she'd let it slip that she thought he was Rick, he certainly had no clue what to say to her now. Well, that wasn't true. He knew exactly what to say. The only thing he _could_ say.

The horrible, crushing truth.

"I'm not….," he stumbled, unable to lift his head from its comforting cradle in her neck. Unable to look her in the eye as he destroyed her world. "I'm not Rick, Beth."

"My name's…," he tried to choke out, the thought of having to introduce himself to her - having to fucking _introduce_ himself to the woman who he loved - absolutely killing him. "My name's Daryl. And I'm your friend, too. I'm your family. Just like Rick. But I'm not….I'm not Rick, Beth. I'm not him. You're confused, sweetheart. I'm so sorry, but you're confused."

He didn't notice that he'd called her _sweetheart_ \- a term of endearment that he'd only ever used when speaking to her presumed spirit - and neither did she. She only noticed everything else. Everything else that made so little sense to her. His anguish and the fact that he was telling her who he was. Telling her that she was confused. Telling her that he wasn't Rick.

Why on Earth would he think that she thought that he was _Rick?_

And then she realized what she'd done. What she'd said. And she was absolutely horrified. She'd called him Rick. It hadn't been intentional on her part, but it hadn't really been a _mistake,_ either. It was something that she did now when she was flustered or overwhelmed or, sometimes, just having a little bit of fun. It was part of a coping strategy that she'd developed since her brain injury. For months and months she'd struggled with finding the right words for things and, after awhile, instead of letting it eat her alive, she'd just decided to go with it. If she couldn't find the word that she wanted, she'd find a random one to use in its place. If she was feeling heartsick that she was so alone, but couldn't remember the world for _alone_ , sometimes it would make her feel a little bit better to abandon the word search and just sob _I'm so banana_ into her pillow instead. And she hadn't just sobbed nonsense into her pillow, she'd spoken it freely to anyone who would listen. Everyone at the hospital had known about her challenges and, whenever she'd misspoken, they'd either chalked it up to a legitimate error or just to her own brain-damaged sense of humor.

They'd never taken her _seriously._

But, of course, Daryl had no way of knowing that. Had no way of knowing that that's what she did now. Had no way of knowing that she'd just been too overcome by emotion to vocalize his name and so her brain had substituted Rick's instead. Her brain had been playing the same game it had been playing for months. She hadn't known that it was playing at the time, but Daryl didn't know that the game even existed in the first place.

She withdrew her arms from around his waist and he loosened his grip slightly: knowing that she was going to pull away from him in horror, and ready to let her do it, but wanting to maintain contact with her until the last moment. Touch her until she wisely stopped allowing this weeping man named _Daryl_ \- this weeping man who wasn't their family's fearless leader, but their utterly forgettable henchman - to maul her anymore. Beth didn't recoil from his embrace as he'd expected, though. She leaned back just far enough to force Daryl to raise his head and, when he did, she put her palms on either side of his face and looked him dead in the eye.

"I know who you are Daryl Dixon," she said, tears streaming down her face. "That was a horrible brain damage joke and I didn't mean to say it. I know you're not Rick. You're _Daryl Dixon_."

Hearing her say his name - his full name - would always be one of the greatest moments of his life. If he was ever given a worksheet like Jimmy had been and asked to list the top-ten things that he was grateful for _when you said my name in the field that day_ would forever be on that list. Because she hadn't just repeated what he'd told her - she hadn't just agreed that he was this man named _Daryl_ \- she'd known that he was Daryl _Dixon_.

And she'd known so much more than that and, after her mistake, she'd been determined to prove it to him.

"You saved me from the prison," she told him, her face breaking into a small smile that grew as she continued to describe who he was and who he'd been to her her. "You got me my first drink. You burn downed a house with me. And you came for me when I was kidnapped. You tried to save me from that hospital. You killed Dawn after she shot me. You're the _hillbilly with the crossbow_ that took out the big bad wolf."

"You're Daryl _fucking_ Dixon," she concluded beaming, obviously delighting in using that word and knowing that her use of it would get through to him. "You're Daryl fucking _Dixon_ and I know exactly who you are and what you've done for me."

He wanted to kiss her.

More than anything he'd ever wanted to do in his entire fucking life, he wanted to kiss her. Wanted to hold her face in his hands just like she was holding his in hers and kiss her until she knew - fucking _knew_ with every fiber of her being - that that was _Daryl fucking Dixon_ kissing her and that _hillbilly with a crossbow_ would stand between her and the big bad wolf until the end of time.

 _I know exactly who you are and what you've done for me._

That statement echoed in his mind again and, instead of kissing her, he let his head fall from her hands and into the crook of her neck again. He couldn't look her in the eyes. He couldn't look her in the eyes and had no idea how she could bear to look into his.

 _I know exactly who you are and what you've done for me._

He pulled her closer, as close as he could, and started to cry again. He was beyond joy that she knew who he was - knew who they had been together - but he was beside himself that she knew what he'd done for her. Because, while she had used the words _done for,_ he knew that the right words were _done to_. She knew - and now _he_ knew - what he had done _to her_.

And it was the worst thing that he could possibly imagine.

He'd left her for dead.

He'd thought that he'd imagined every different way that their lives could have gone. Every twist and turn that could have lead to her being alive in his arms, but he'd never once imagined her surviving that gunshot. Every dream that he'd had - every scenario that he'd concocted - involved that action being avoided. Her entire life - and his entire dream world - hinged on that trigger never being pulled. He'd never even considered the possibility that she could have lived. Never considered the possibility that she'd never been dead at all. That they'd found her alive and that one day she'd come back to him.

Even in his wildest dreams, he'd never imagined anything as amazing and as awful as that.

"Holy _fuck_ , I left you," he said on a shaky gasp, his voice gravelly and full of absolute agony. "I fuckin' _left_ you. I left you behind with those evil _fucks_. I left you all alone with them. Christ, I'm so fuckin' _sorry_ , sweetheart. I'm so fuckin' sorry. I swear I thought you was dead. We _all_ thought you was dead. I swear, Beth. I fuckin' _saw_ you get shot..."

She was hushing him softly and stroking his back lightly, but even that couldn't comfort him. Couldn't soothe him. Couldn't alleviate the sense of horror at what he'd done.

"I…," he stumbled, trying to figure out how he could convey everything to her. How he could explain to her - and to himself - how it had all gone so wrong. "Christ, girl, I carried your fuckin' _body_. I had your blood on me. I never woulda...I saw you _die_ , girl. I see it every fuckin' _day_. I never woulda left you. I never woulda fuckin' _left_ you, Beth. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so _sorry_ …"

It all sounded so hollow to his ears. It was all so painfully insufficient and, after taking a shuddering breath, he found himself unable to resume talking. There was nothing else he could say. He'd left her for dead and she'd had to fend for herself in some hellhole for almost a year. Fight her way out of it and make her way home all alone. All because he'd left her behind. All because he'd failed her.

Again.

It was the biggest mistake in a lifetime of mistakes and, just like the one that had previously held that title, she'd paid for it.

"It's okay, Daryl," she assured him, her hand still making light passes across his back. Passes that, in truth, he could barely feel through his thick vest and shirt, but - in his mind - seemed like the most powerful touch that he'd ever known. "I know what it looked like. I know what you saw. Of course, you thought I was dead. _Of course_ , you did. _Everyone_ did. Not just our people, but everyone at the hospital, too. They were _all_ shocked when they found me the next day. Honestly, I think that's the only reason they worked so hard to save me. It seemed like such a miracle, you know? And I think maybe they got a little superstitious about that. Because I _shouldn't_ have survived a wound like that. It _shouldn't_ have happened."

Hearing her say that she shouldn't have survived shook something in him. He had his arms wrapped around her but she was wearing a backpack, so he wasn't really touching her at all. He raised his good hand to the back of her head to cradle it in his palm. It was a comforting gesture that was far more about soothing him than soothing her. She didn't really need his comfort: her only distress coming from the distress he was feeling.

Her only concern alleviating his guilt.

"And it was a _good_ thing you left me," she continued, her voice full of conviction. "Don't _ever_ feel bad about that."

She'd known that, if she was ever lucky enough to find her family again, they'd feel guilty for having left her behind. She'd known that she'd have to reassure them and ease their pain. And it hadn't been hard to imagine doing that because, as far as she was concerned, there was absolutely nothing for them to regret. They couldn't have known that she was alive and, even if they had, there's nothing that they could have done but leave her.

"I _would have_ died if you'd taken me with you," she told him, laying out the cold reality of the situation. "I only made it because I was at a hospital and even _then_ it was hard as hell, Daryl. I could barely talk, barely move. I was basically in bed for _months._ It was hard as hell to come back from that gunshot. I'm _still_ coming back from it. And that never would have happened on the road. I would have died before we even made it out of the city. And other people probably would've died, too. Leaving me was the only thing you could do and it was the _right_ thing to do, okay? Leaving me saved my life. _You_ saved my life. Don't ever doubt that."

He was once again speechless. He knew that he'd always be haunted by the fact that he'd left her, but he also knew that every word that she'd just said was true. Whatever magic they'd been able to perform at Grady would have never happened on the run. And she would have never been in a position where she could have spent months basically in bed. Unable to talk or to move. No matter what they had done, they couldn't have kept her alive like that. Not the way things were then. They couldn't have done it.

 _He_ couldn't have done it.

She'd been better off at Grady. The horror of that statement didn't diminish its truth. She'd been better off there, at least for awhile.

That did little to alleviate his guilt or free up his tongue, though, and he was unable to formulate any kind of response. He was holding a living _Beth Greene_ for fuck's sake. How the hell was he supposed to talk?

And, suddenly, he was given a reprieve in the form of a task. A mission that would give him something practical, rather than emotional, to focus on. As he was holding her, the silence between them was broken when her stomach growled so loudly that he swore that he could actually _feel_ it rumble from where they touched. She laughed that beautiful laughed of hers - a motion that he definitely felt and relished - and mumbled a totally unnecessary apology and he sprang into action.

" _Christ_ , when was the last time you _ate_ , girl?," he asked her, his tone full of the kind of concern that - had she known him less - she would have heard as anger.

Actually, probably _was_ a little angry.

"I don't know," she admitted with another light laugh. "Maybe yesterday morning? I didn't really like raiding houses on my own and I didn't have a squirrel hunter with me. So my options were kinda limited."

He heart sank to hear that. Sank to hear that she hadn't eaten in at least 36 hours and to be reminded of why. She hadn't eaten because she'd been alone and it's hard - hard and, honestly, pretty terrifying - to scavenge the world without a partner. It'd been like that for him and he couldn't imagine how it had been for her. He'd hated raiding those homes in Senoia with that infected cut on his hand and he hadn't been _nearly_ as vulnerable as a brain-damaged young woman on the run. He hadn't had to worry about Grady cops chasing after him or brutal men raping him or dealing with whatever other worries a beautiful wounded girl would have to worry about. It hadn't been nearly as hard for him as it had been for her and, until he'd seen Beth's beaming face on the Rosenberg's refrigerator, he'd cursed every _single_ second of it.

The only thing stronger than his heartache over knowing that she'd gone through that was his conviction that she was never, _ever_ going to go through it again.

"Well, you got a squirrel hunter with you now," he told her and pulled them both to their feet. He hated losing the contact, but the need to feed her was greater than the need to hold her, so he dropped his arms and took a small step back. "And he ain't gonna let you go hungry."

He looked her up and down and really saw her for the first time. Really saw how wrecked she was. Saw the scars and the exhaustion on her face. Saw the thinness in her frame and the way she was standing to clearly favor one side. She was hungry and tired and, he was pretty sure, her leg was in pain. He bent over and picked up the long-forgotten crossbow and, in a move that he hadn't performed in almost a year, he slung it over his chest instead of his back.

"And he ain't gonna let you limp your skinny ass to the house, neither," he told her with a grin, turning around and crouching down. "So hop on. Know you know how."

"I made it here from Atlanta, Daryl," she laughingly protested, even as she took a small step forward. "I can make it to the house."

"Yeah, I can throw you over my shoulder and haul you there kickin' and screamin'," he laughed in return, delighting in the chance to finally tease her. Delighting because she _had_ taken that one step and he was sure that she was going to give in. "So why don't we split the difference and do it this way? For old time's sake?"

"Alright, Mr. Dixon," she said cheekily, leaving him unsure as to which was better: her agreeing to his proposal or her calling him _Mr. Dixon_. She looped her arms around his neck for balance and then wrapped her legs around his waist, letting out a slight wince at the move that confirmed his earlier suspicions about her being in pain. He couldn't hear any discomfort in her voice though when she ordered with another light laugh, "Take me on a trip down memory lane."

He hooked his hands around her thighs to support her as he stood up and started walking slowly to the house. He wanted to feed her quickly, but he wasn't sure how much pain she was in and he didn't want to jostle her, so he opted for a more casual pace. The last time that he'd carried her like that he'd joked that she'd been heavier than she'd looked. This time he cringed inwardly realizing that she was, in fact, just as _slight_ as she looked. Her legs felt solid and sturdy under his palms and her weight was a welcome presence at his back, but she was still entirely too thin.

And that hadn't happened in 36 hours.

He wondered how well they'd been feeding her at Grady and how long she'd been on the road. She clearly hadn't been starving or anything, but she wasn't as robust as she should have been, either. She'd mentioned being bedridden though, so maybe that was the issue, he mused. Maybe she'd just lost a lot of muscle tone from being inactive for so long.

"How'd you know I have a limp?," she asked him, seemingly out of the blue.

"What?," he replied, having been totally lost in his train of thought.

"You said you weren't going to let me _limp my skinny ass_ to the house," she explained, doing her best Daryl impression as she quoted him. "But how did you know I have a limp? It wasn't limping when I walked across the field. When it's early in the day and I try really hard, I can walk just fine. And I was trying _really_ hard to walk normally so you didn't think I was a walker. So how did you know I have a limp?"

"Could just tell by the way you was standin'," he responded simply. He was glad to hear that it didn't always bother her, but the explanation had made it sound like it was a long-standing problem. Not a recent or temporary injury.

"That from the gunshot?," he asked, even though he pretty much already knew the answer.

"Yeah," she confirmed as they crossed the halfway point to the house. "The grip on my left hand is pretty weak, too. And my voice is a bit different, I think. Maybe from the bullet or the intubation? I don't know. I got worse and they put me on a ventilator for a while...And I'm bad with words sometimes. Sometimes I can't find the word I'm looking for and that's really annoying. I'm actually really impressed that I got _intubation_ and _ventilator_ there. I'm giving myself a gold star for that."

He'd have agreed with her about the gold star - would have given her all her well-earned praise for the linguistic achievement - if he'd been able get past everything leading up to her laughing self-congratulations. If he'd been able to get beyond everything that made performing what, to her, would have been a routine act into a laudable accomplishment. He'd wondered about her voice and he was absolutely stunned - to the extent that he could still _be_ stunned after her miraculous reappearance - by her casual revelation that she'd been on a ventilator for _a while._ She'd been on a ventilator because, at some point, she'd gotten worse.

Worse.

She'd been left for dead with a bullet through her brain and somehow things had gotten _worse?_

He fought back another round of tears as she continued, oblivious to the pain her words were causing him.

"And my memory's not always that great, either," she went on, like she was simply describing the weather. "I mean, I remember all the really big stuff. I remember our family and what happened to us. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think so. It's come back to me slowly, you know? But I really think most of it's there. I definitely still have gaps, though. No question."

He hummed in acknowledgement, still unable to speak and trying to process all those deficits that she'd rattled off as if they were nothing. As if they were just minor inconveniences.

"But, for the most part, it's okay," she told him cheerfully, tightening her grip around his shoulder slightly. "Most of the things I know I don't know I'm okay with not knowing. You know?"

"That was a lot of _knows_ ," she giggled in his ear, the sound and the motion of which sent a thrill down his spine. "Maybe if I wasn't so bad with words I could have come up with some others. I just meant that...like, I can't remember my fourth grade teacher's name or the first school play I was in or whatever. But, that's okay. I don't need to know those things."

He tightened his grip on her thighs as a nonverbal sign of understanding. He didn't like the idea of her losing any part of herself, but he didn't want to say that. Didn't want to make her feel like she was anything less than she'd always been. Like he saw her as broken or flawed. So he'd just squeezed her legs, stayed silent and kept walking as they neared the front porch.

"But some of it bothers me," she said softly after a few beats, her tone going a little sad for the first time since describing her struggles. "Like I can remember everything about my grandmother. I can remember baking cookies with her and putting on dance recitals for her and getting so excited every time she came to visit. I remember everything about her. At least, I think I do. But I can't remember her _name_. I can't remember her name and it's been making me crazy for _months_."

"But for the most part, it's all okay," she said, the cheer returning to her voice. "All things considered, I'm doing really well and I'm getting better every day."

God, he loved her.

He loved her so fucking much it hurt. Putting such a positive spin on such a horrible thing. She'd been shot in the head and left by her family for dead. Left in a place where she'd been held prisoner. She had brain damage and physical disabilities. She couldn't remember her own grandmother's name. A woman she'd loved deeply and who had loved her deeply in return.

And there she was saying that she was _doing really well_ and _getting better every day_.

He climbed the steps of the front porch and, reluctantly, bent down so that she could climb off of his back. Once she was steady on her feet, he turned around and looked at her. She was scarred and she was dirty and she was tired. So fucking _tired._

But she was smiling and her eyes were glowing and she was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"Millicent Avery Greene," he told her with a small smile. "Her name was Millicent Avery Greene. She went by Millie. And your granddaddy, Tommy, made her that swing over there for their twentieth anniversary."

Beth's eye's went wide in surprise and she brought her hand up to cover her dropped jaw. The name had hit her like a bolt of lightning. Like a beautiful bolt of lightning illuminating the dark sky of her mind. Though Beth had known her simply as _Granny_ , her mother used to call her beloved in-law _Mama Millie_. She remembered her mother very well, but that had been the first time that she'd ever been able to recall her voice. Standing on the porch and staring as Daryl's grin she could hear her mother saying _I love you, Mama Millie_ and _That pie was amazing, Mama Millie_ and _Why don't you have a seat Mama Millie, I bet the kids are wearing you out._

"Never met her," he went on, his smile widening with her reaction. "But she seemed like a hell of a woman. Probably why ya'll got along so well."

Beth started to cry, lost in memories of Granny and Mama Millie and her own mother's long forgotten voice. A voice that she hadn't heard in years. A voice that she'd thought she might never hear again. The hands that had been covering her mouth moved to cover her sobbing eyes instead, trying to block out everything except those sudden and wonderful memories.

She'd seemed so happy before and he'd originally believed that her tears had been tears of joy. Now that she was weeping and shielding her face, though, he wasn't so sure. He wasn't sure of anything at all - Beth Greene was _alive_ for God's sake, so all the rules were clearly out the window - and he was worried. His smile fell as he tried to figure out what emotions were at work inside that beautiful damaged mind of hers. What was bothering her and what he could do to fix it. He couldn't stop himself from raising his good hand to rest on her shoulder. Just to connect with her. Just to let her know that, whatever was going on in her head, she didn't have to go through it alone.

"What's wrong?," he asked her softly and squeezing her far too bony shoulder gently. "Didn't mean to upset you. Meant it in a nice way. 'Bout her bein' a hell of woman. Meant it as a compliment. Meant it as a compliment _to you_ , too. I'm shitty at that, but I wasn't tryin' to say nothin' mean 'bout Millie, girl. Promise."

He really didn't think that that was what had caused her weeping, but he hadn't been able to think of anything else and he'd just wanted to say _something_. She couldn't see him, so he'd wanted her to hear his voice. He'd wanted her to know that that was _Daryl Dixon's_ hand on her shoulder. That he was there. And, hopefully, get her to say something back to him.

And it worked.

"I know," she assured him, rubbing her palms against her eyes before finally taking her hands away from her face. She looked at him with a shaky smile and explained, "I'm sorry. I just…I just get overwhelmed sometimes when I remember things. Mama used to call her _Mama Millie_ and when you said that I could hear her. I could _hear_ Mama's voice calling her that. And I haven't heard Mama's voice since... It just brought up a lot of stuff. Like all in a rush. And it's a lot to take in when that happens, you know?"

"No," he told her shaking his head softly, his voice full of sadness. He had no idea what it was like when _that_ _happens_. That rush of forgotten memories that was, apparently, a part of her life now.

"Oh...," she replied somewhat flustered, surprised by his response. "I guess I'm not ...I guess I'm not explaining it well. Like I said, I'm bad with words sometimes. I meant that…"

"No," he cut her off, shaking his head gently again. "You explained it fine. Didn't mean I didn't get what you was _sayin'_. Just meant I don't get what you're _goin' through._ Don't know what it's like not to remember shit. What it's like to hear your mama's voice like that. What that feels like."

She was more surprised by that response than by his first one. Daryl Dixon misunderstanding her made more sense than Daryl Dixon steering an already emotional moment into even more emotional territory. Splitting hairs on a casual comment - not giving her the obvious and easy _yes_ \- so that he could go out of his way to address how she _feels._

"Always pissed me off when I was havin' a hard time and people acted like they knew what I was goin' through," he told her, interpreting from her thoughtful silence that his answer required further explanation. "Tried to relate to me like they got it. When I knew for a fuckin' _fact_ they didn't. Just didn't wanna do that to you. You asked me if I knew and I said _no._ 'Cause I don't. Don't know what it's like to be you right now. Don't know what it's like to get shot in the head."

She let out a sharp and gorgeous laugh at that last sentence, which surprised him given the sincerity with which he'd been trying to speak to her, until he realized what she'd found so funny.

"Okay, I know what it's like to get shot _on_ the head," he said with a small grin, bringing his free hand up to touch the scar that lay beneath his hairline. "But that ain't _in_ the head. And that one letter makes a big fuckin' difference, girl."

"I'm glad you remember that, though," he added after a beat, his grin breaking into a full smile when he put that together. When he realized that that piece of shared history still lived in her beautiful mind. "Weren't my finest hour. Gettin' shot by Andrea after I'd already shot my damn self with the bow. But gettin' hurt weren't the worst part of that. Worst part of that was I never thanked my nurse for takin' such good care of me. And she was _really_ cute, too. Deserved to get shot a third time for that."

Beth bent her head down and shook it lightly, laughing that beautiful laugh again. And, for the first time in almost a year, Daryl saw her blush. Her cheeks went rosy at his comments: finding both the gratitude and the flattery so completely unexpected. He'd teased her before, of course, but never like that.

Daryl Dixon had just said that she was _really cute._

Even if he'd just been teasing her, she thought, it was still very nice.

Still very, very nice coming from him.

He was lost in that beautiful blush until his eyes locked in on the scar on her temple. That scar that reminded him of all the deficits that they'd just been talking about. Of everything that she'd gone through to get there. Of the reason that he'd had to piggyback her to the porch in the first place. And why he'd be so intent on doing it in _that_ moment.

Girl had been through hell and she needed to fucking _eat._

They had the rest of the day to talk. Fuck, they had forever to talk. He couldn't even begin to process that thought. Couldn't even begin to think about the long-term, but he could very easily focus on the short-term. On the immediate future. And the immediate future was all about her immediate needs. So, he removed his hand from her shoulder reluctantly and turned around to open the front door.

"Welcome home, Beth," he told her with a grin, and held his arm out in front of him to indicate that she should walk in first. He even made a slight bow in what he hoped would come off as a chivalrous gesture: comic or sincere, he really didn't care. His mind flashed on the gallantry in _Pride and Prejudice_ and he briefly wished that he'd called her _Ms. Greene._

 _Welcome home, Ms. Greene. May I have the pleasure of escorting you to dinner?_

He couldn't help but chuckle at the fact that she'd be shocked to know that he'd just had that thought. That he'd just pictured himself kissing her hand, folding her arm into the crook of his, and walking through the doors of their grand estate.

 _Greene Manor_ or some shit.

Beth just assumed that he was laughing from the pure happiness of the moment, of course. From his genuine pleasure at welcoming her back to her home. And, even more so, she thought, from his sincere relief to have _anyone_ to welcome home at all.

From his relief not to be _alone_ anymore.

But he was happy, and so was she, so she decided to seize on the joy of the homecoming. To leave the question about why it was just the two of them and the undoubtedly horrible answer for later.

"Why thank you, Mr. Dixon," she said with her best Southern belle accent, obviously picking up on his courtly manners even if she was ignorant as to the thoughts that had accompanied them. "It's so good to be back."

And she meant it. As she took that first step through the door it felt so incredibly, deeply good to be back. She scanned her surroundings and, from what she could see, everything appeared just as she'd remembered it. Nothing was missing or out of order. It was clean and tidy and she felt like she hadn't just stepped through a door: she'd felt like she'd stepped through a porthole in time. Like she'd gone back three years before everything fell apart and the world was safe and secure and good again. She turned around to express that to Daryl, but he was already making his way into the kitchen to fix her something to eat.

Unbeknownst to her, it was a brutal walk because he knew just how bare the cupboards were that lay ahead of him. Two weeks of being virtually housebound from his injury and infection had obliterated his stores. He'd told her that she had a squirrel hunter with her now, but he hadn't been a squirrel hunter in a while. And he'd already resigned himself to the fact that, no matter what condition his hand was in, that was going to have to change tomorrow. He was going to have to go out and find some game. Or, failing that, actually raid a house. That was by far the less desirable option, but one way or another, he'd already known that he'd needed more food.

And that had just been when he'd been feeding himself.

And not, to be honest, particularly well.

But he needed to feed Beth _well_. He needed to feed her as much as he could of the best things that he could. And, eventually, he was going to need to feed both of them, too. She could have everything that he had in the kitchen until he found something more, but that was going to have to be soon.

Opening the cabinets, he saw exactly what he'd knew that he'd see: three cans of soup, a can of beans, and some potted meat that even _he'd_ been reluctant to eat. He knew that he eventually _would_ force it down - he'd eaten expired cat food for fuck's sake - but there was a reason that it was still in there and he didn't even consider serving it to her.

As he'd been staring at the meager offering in dismay, Beth had been moving to join him in the kitchen and, when she saw what he was looking at, her reaction was completely different than his.

But exactly what he would have expected of her.

"Tomato soup!," she exclaimed with glee, standing just a few feet behind him. "Oh my God, I haven't had tomato soup in _ages!_ Do we still have gas in the stove? Can we heat some of that up? Oh, that would be so _good._ "

He turned around and looked at her and - for what felt like the hundredth time in the past ten minutes - he wanted to kiss her. Kiss her for being so excited over something so simple. Kiss her for seeing what was there and ignoring what wasn't. Kiss her for making him feel like, even for a second, he could provide for her. Like he was in a position to give her exactly what she wanted when, just a few moments ago, he'd felt like he'd had nothing to offer her at all.

He didn't, though. He didn't for a lot of reasons, but mostly he didn't because he wanted to make her happy even more than he wanted to kiss her. And it was clear that, in that moment, what would make her the happiest was a warm bowl of tomato soup. And he could accomplish that. They _did_ still have gas in the stove and he _could_ heat it up. He rarely bothered for himself, but he could easily make that happen for her.

And that's what needed to happen, right fucking _now_ , because she hadn't eaten since yesterday fucking morning.

"'Course we got gas, girl," he told her with a grin, reaching for the soup and the beans as well. "And we got pots and can opener. Bowls and spoons. And even got fancy silverware and napkins, too. Family that used to own this place knew how to live. Did it up right. And now we can do it up right, too. Go sit down at the table or somethin' and I'll fix it for you, okay? Rest that sweet limpin' ass while Chef Dixon works his magic."

She laughed and, even though she wanted to stay in the kitchen with him, she actually was really tired from staying up all night and did want to sit down. So she agreed and moved into the adjoining dining room, choosing a chair where she could still see Daryl at work as he went about preparing the meal. And, as she watched him, she began to wonder again about just what had happened to the rest of their family and just how long he'd been alone. She knew that her unexpected resurrection would undoubtedly bring out a strong reaction in anyone. Her survival was crazy and she'd expected whoever she found might behave in a strange way upon seeing her. And maybe that was all that was going on, but she'd never known Daryl to be this chatty.

He'd said more words to her in the past fifteen minutes than he'd sometimes say in days.

And it wasn't just the amount of words that struck her, it was the _type_ of words. Words of kindness and gratitude and teasing compliments. Calling her _really cute_ and referring to her _sweet limpin' ass._ She had no doubt that anyone in her family would joyfully welcome her return and wouldn't have expected Daryl to do any different. She would have expected for him to be happy to see her. To maybe even hug her and say some nice things. But this felt like more to her. More solicitous, more smiling, more open than she'd ever really known him to be. And, given the absence of everyone else, she could only imagine that meant one thing.

He was _really_ desperate for company.

Whatever happened, happened awhile ago, she concluded. She studied the length of his beard as he stirred some pots on the stove and thought about the time it represented. From what she could remember, Daryl had never cared about his grooming habits, but Carol had always nagged him about trimming his beard after a certain point. It had always puzzled her as to why Carol had cared, but she had, and his beard had never gotten that much longer than an inch or so before he'd given in and cut it back a bit to get her off of his case. It had never gotten so long or so full that you couldn't see at least some of his skin peeking through and it had never covered his entire face. It was halfway down his neck now, though, and extended all the way up his cheeks and into his hairline.

He really did look like the _mountain man_ Carol had always teased him of being in her attempts to keep him in line.

And Beth knew from the people at Grady that Carol had made it out with everyone else. She'd survived and she'd been with them as they'd run away. Maybe she'd still died that day, though, just out of the sight of the hospital. Or maybe she'd died later in an incident that was unrelated to whatever happened to the rest of her family. That was entirely possible. There were, unfortunately, a lot of ways for a life to end those days. She couldn't help but think that there was a connection there, though. A connection between the length of that beard and the length of time that he'd been alone.

And she couldn't help but think that that meant it had been _months._

Months since the last of their family had died or been taken or worse. Months since he'd been rattling around her house all by himself. Months since he'd spoken to anyone.

He'd told her about hallucinating Merle and, given everything, she was actually really surprised that he believed that she was real.

Maybe he just didn't care either way, she mused. She'd felt so alone at Grady sometimes that she would have gladly taken a phantom Daryl or a phantom Maggie or even a phantom Judy. Anyone who she loved. She knew that Daryl didn't love her, of course, but she was his friend and that had to mean a lot to anyone who'd been isolated for that long.

"Do you really believe that it's me?," she surprised herself by asking. She hadn't meant to voice that thought aloud, but she doubled-down and asked it again. "Do you really believe that I'm real?"

"Yeah," he said emphatically, turning around from the stove and looking her straight in the eye. "Know you are."

"How?," she inquired automatically. She'd spent months trying to figure out a way that she could really prove that she existed to someone who thought that she was a ghost or an hallucination. She'd spent months trying to figure out how she could convince someone who thought that they were crazy that they weren't actually crazy and she'd never come up with something that couldn't be argued with. Something that couldn't be dismissed as a delusion by someone who was inclined to do so.

"Smell like you," he answered, responding as quickly as she had in asking the question and giving it as little thought as she'd given to initiating the discussion. He didn't consider the implications of that statement at all or of anything that he said as he continued, "Can hallucinate a lot of shit, but I can't hallucinate that. Believe me, I fuckin' tried. Try to imagine what you smell like all the time and it don't work."

"And ghosts don't smell," he added with a grin. "Ain't no tale 'bout _Casper the Stinky Ghost_. So you gotta be real right? Gotta be beautiful and alive and sittin' right in fuckin' front of me. It's crazy as fuckin' hell, but there ain't no denyin' it, girl. You're as real as me."

She was surprised by almost every part of that response. The fact that she smelled like herself was, she supposed, as reasonable an answer as any. She was pretty sure that a person _could_ hallucinate scent, though, so it wasn't especially logical. But it had enough logic to make her believe that he was thinking straight. Especially since he'd been making a comment more about his own abilities rather than about the broader capacity of the human mind.

He'd tried to imagine her scent and had failed and therefore knew that he wasn't making it up this time.

That made some sense.

By why would he have tried to imagine what she'd smelled like in the first place? Had he been trying to track her that way or something? Locate her by scent after she'd been taken? That seemed pretty feral even for him. And really impractical, too. Plus, he'd said that he tried _all the time_. Why would he still be trying almost a year after she was dead?

Maybe she'd misunderstood him, she thought. Or, maybe, after not speaking to anybody for so long, he just wasn't making himself clear. But the rest of what he'd said had been clear and it had also been kind of strange, too. Smiling and complimenting her again. Making jokes about stinky ghosts and calling her _beautiful._

 _What had happened to him?_

Daryl turned around and went back to stirring the soup and the beans. They were almost ready and, he hoped, would be enough to fill her for this meal. It was still a rather lackluster banquet to celebrate the miracle of a lifetime and, no matter how much she was excited about that tomato soup, he still wanted to give her something better.

Something special.

And suddenly he knew exactly what it would be. He _did_ have some other food in the house. Food that he didn't keep in the kitchen. Food, he now realized, that he'd always been saving just for her. The lunch was fully heated now and he grabbed a spoon from the silverware drawer and a nice linen napkin from the drawer underneath it. One of the ones that he'd never used, but felt like she deserved to have. He then filled two bowls - one each of soup and beans - and carried everything over to the table.

"Lunch is served, Ms. Greene," he said with a grin, remembering his _Pride and Prejudice_ as he placed everything in front of her. "Just got one more thing to grab and I'll be right back. Dig in."

Before she had a chance to respond, he was walking past her and heading upstairs.

….

He rushed, not wanting to spend any more time away from her than he had to, and went into his bedroom to grab his - no _her_ \- can of fruit cocktail. He smiled when he saw it sitting there on his dresser, remembering how she'd beamed when she'd found the stuff that day in the cabin and imagining seeing the ecstatic look on her face when he brought it down to her now.

And then his whole world fell apart.

He saw his elaborate dresser shrine with new eyes and realized what he'd truly constructed there. That collection of odds and ends wasn't a memorial to her life: it was a monument to his madness. Beth had asked him just a few minutes ago if he believed that she was real and he absolutely did. He firmly believed that she was sitting in the dining room at that very moment eating tomato soup and wondering what he'd gone to grab. He knew that she was alive and he knew that he wasn't crazy.

Which meant that he _had been_ crazy for months.

The entire life that he'd built for himself on the farm - the life that he'd come to consider _their_ life, the life that he'd _shared_ with her - had been a delusion. One big, beautiful lie. He'd been crazy since the moment that he'd picked up that can of fruit cocktail on the side of the road and saw it as a sign and he'd been going crazier and crazier every day since. He'd been talking to himself alone in an empty room for months. Telling stories and pouring out his heart to no one for months. Laughing and crying and apologizing to no one for months. Seeing meaning in things that had no meaning for months. Believing he was surrounded by evidence of her presence and compassion and care when she'd been languishing in a hospital the whole fucking time. When she'd barely had any control over her own life - any control over her own _body_ \- and had certainly had no influence over his.

 _None_ of it had been real.

And it wasn't until he realized that none of it had been real that he realized just how much he'd convinced himself that she loved him. He'd never convinced himself that she was _in love_ with him - had never crossed that line in his head - but, at some point, he _had_ convinced himself that she loved him deeply. He'd convinced himself that she loved him enough to watch over him and protect him and spend her afterlife keeping him company. That she loved him enough to fill her room with her beautiful spirit and warm him with her light day after day. That she loved him enough to entertain him with delightful stories that she whispered in his ear. That she loved him enough to _scream_ in his ear and get him to go search for antibiotics in the nick of time. That she loved him enough to guide him straight to the Rosenberg's house and to Stopsign's medicine. That she loved him enough to visit him in his dreams as _Nurse Greene_ and assure him that everything was going to be alright. That she loved him enough to listen to his stories when he played _Remember When_. That she loved him enough to listen to him when he said anything at all.

That she loved him enough to do all of that when she could have been with anyone else instead.

When she could have been enjoying any other version of her richly deserved eternal reward.

And absolutely none of that was true. She didn't love him at all. Or, maybe she did. Probably, she did. She probably always had because they were friends and they were family and she was a loving person. But she didn't love him like he'd thought that she did. She hadn't devoted herself to him like he'd thought that she had.

Because she'd never fucking been there at all.

Because none of it had been real.

He sat down on his bed and buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Overcome by the unbelievable whiplash of it all. Beth Greene was alive but, in a way, she'd just died, too. The Beth who he'd been living with and counting on and believing in for months was suddenly gone. And the intense relationship that he'd had with her - the most intense and honest relationship that he'd ever had with _anyone_ \- was gone as well. The clock had been turned back almost a year and that was an indescribable miracle - a gift beyond measure or description - but, just like anything to ever touch the life of a fucking Dixon, it wasn't an unalloyed good.

Because they were right back where they'd left off.

They were back to being, in Beth's mind, friends who were just thrown together through a set of terrible circumstances. She'd happened to be hauled out of the prison by him after the Governor came and now she'd happened to stumble upon him when returning to her family home. That was all. She hadn't heard him tell her how much he loved her and how much he respected her. She hadn't heard him list his seemingly innumerable regrets about his treatment of her. She hadn't heard him confess things that he'd never confessed to anyone. Things about how he felt about her and how he felt about himself. Things that had happened in his childhood and in his darkest days with Merle. Things that he'd once hoped for and things that he'd always feared.

She didn't know any of the things that he'd thought that she knew.

And that wasn't because of her memory, it was because he'd been a crazy man talking to himself. Deluding himself into believing that the woman who he'd loved and lost was sitting quietly at his side.

Watching and listening as he'd invaded her privacy and poured through all her things.

That shrine was a monument to _that_ , too. A monument to everything that he'd taken from her literally and figuratively. He'd taken all those objects - the hairpins, the flute, the ring, the poem, the school notes - but he'd taken so much more, too. Details about her life large and small that hadn't been freely given. She was sitting downstairs eating soup right now and she had no idea that he knew that Jimmy had once asked her out with a lame joke written on a scrap of wood, that her Aunt Colleen used to send her postcards from all her trips and that she'd always addressed her as _Little Beetle_ , that she couldn't stand Mr. Percy's chemistry class and made horrible French puns.

That he'd heard her sing the love song that she hadn't wanted him to hear.

He knew so many things about her that she'd never told him. And now, because of her injury, he knew things about her that even she didn't know. Like he was pretty sure that her fourth grade teacher's name was Ms. Onassis. He was pretty sure of that because, when she was nine, she drew a picture called _Ms. Onassis Needs Molasses Glasses_ that, after lengthy examination, he'd decided depicted a teacher at a chalkboard. And he knew that she'd been in fourth grade that year because, like every year of her young life, her first day of school had been documented in the family photo albums. And, since all her sweet little birthday parties had been just as reliably recorded, he'd known that she'd been nine.

And, just in case she was wondering, she and her friends went rollerskating and she wore the same skates that still sat on the shelf in her closet. They opened presents and ate a chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Bethy! written around a big number 9 in white icing. A cake that he assumed had been made by her mother because the script was always iced in the same handwriting year after year and it looked an awful lot like Annette's.

That was the kind of dissection of her life that he'd been performing for months. This detailed observation of every aspect of her existence. Every trace of her in that home. And, while he'd questioned it at first, it had come to feel entirely acceptable when she was a loving spirit watching over him as he did it - had even felt _respectful_ and _honorable_ when she was a loving spirit watching over him as he did it - but it felt like an absolute _violation_ now that she was living person eating tomato soup downstairs.

And it was a violation that he couldn't hide.

The shrine itself wasn't that big of a problem. He could keep her from coming into his room for a while, he imagined. There would be no reason for her to want to anyway. And she probably wouldn't notice right away that her nurse's uniform or her flute or her ring of any of the dozens of other small items that now dotted his dresser were missing. In fact, if he really wanted to, he could just throw everything in the closet and play dumb if she ever brought up an absent object. Or mention that someone had been staying in the house at some point and let her assume that they'd been taken.

But that was all pretty irrelevant.

Because the shrine wasn't what was going to give him away, it was his very presence in that house. She was going to want to know - and soon - why he was there and where everyone else was. And there was nothing he could do but tell her the truth about that. He'd committed many lies of omission in his day, but he very rarely lied outright to someone's face and he definitely wasn't going to lie to Beth. Not about something like that. Not about the fate of her family and her friends. He was going to have to assure her that they were safe and sound in Alexandria. And when he did, she was going to have a million questions, but the first one was going to be the hardest.

The one that cut right to the broken, bleeding, lovestruck heart of it all.

 _Then why are you here?_

And he couldn't lie to her about that, either. He could tell her the partial truth: that he'd hated every second that he'd lived in Alexandria, that he'd always longed to be outside its walls, that he'd wanted to go back to Georgia from the moment that he'd stepped out of it, and that he'd known that their family could live without him now, so he'd left. He'd left and he'd come back to their farm because he'd wanted to be in Georgia and he'd known that it was a good place to be. He could tell her that partial truth, but she wouldn't believe him. At least, she wouldn't believe him right away. She'd have questions and he'd have to _sell her_ that partial truth. And that would be way too much like actually lying - way too much like what it actually would be - and that was unacceptable, too.

He was only sitting on his bed considering it because telling her the full truth seemed even more unacceptable. Telling her that he'd fallen into a pit of despair when she'd died and, after wallowing soullessly for months, had driven over a thousand walker-ridden miles to go through her closet. To find one more picture of her. To see what was hidden under her bed. To be closer to her and to learn more about her. Telling her that he'd left everyone who they'd loved behind because he'd loved just the _idea_ of her _empty room_ more. Telling her that he'd risked his life traveling nearly a month alone on the road just to go through that empty room and talk to her ghost. He didn't know how he could possibly do that.

And not because it would reveal his violation of her privacy. He didn't like that part, but that wasn't what was making him consider playing loosely with the truth. He wasn't considering it because he wanted to protect himself - to hide his insanity and his misdeeds - he was only considering it because he wanted to protect _Beth_. And, again, not really from the knowledge that he'd gone through her room. He knew that, at the end of the day, he hadn't uncovered anything about her that she'd probably be bothered by him knowing. He'd never read her diary and he'd never gone through her underwear drawer, after all. He'd never gone through her most private things. So his stolen knowledge of her personal history wasn't what he wanted to protect her from.

It was the knowledge of his feelings for her.

He'd always imagined that, if he'd ever had the chance, he'd want to fall at her feet and tell her everything. Tell her how much he loved her and wanted her and needed her. How special and perfect and incredible he thought that she was. But, under those particular circumstances, it seemed unfair.

It seemed _dangerous._

It was clear that the forty mile trip from Atlanta had exhausted her and she'd freely admitted to still having mobility problems. To still being on the mend from the many deficits caused by her injury. If she learned about his true feelings now - feelings that he was positive that she didn't reciprocate - then she'd be put in a horrible position: try to make friends with a man who she knows is literally _insanely_ in love with her while she continues to recuperate or force herself back on the road too soon to try to rejoin her long-lost family. Try to make a journey that, even if everything went in their favor, would probably be twenty-five times longer than the one she'd just barely completed.

If she'd been healthy, it would have been different.

If they'd had nowhere else to go - no family to return to - it would have been different.

If they'd really and truly turned back the clock and were at that fucking funeral home again, it would have been different.

But it wasn't different. It was this. They were in a situation that they'd never been in before and that he'd never imagined them being in. They were alone, but they didn't _have to_ be. They had a choice. _She_ had choice. But that choice was risky and her health made it even riskier. And he knew that her desire to see her family again - to see Maggie and Glenn and Judy - would already make her want to push herself beyond her limits. Would already tempt her to take that risk.

What would happen if she felt equally desperate to get away from him? If he threw that added incentive into the mix?

He had no doubt that she'd always stay his friend, but he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be stuck alone in a house with a friend who loved them with a delusional passion. He couldn't imagine her not wanting to opt out of that uncomfortable arrangement. Especially when she could do it in such a seemingly positive way. In a way that appeared like she was running _towards_ her family and not _away_ from him. She'd feel compelled to make that choice, he thought.

And then they'd both be fucked.

Because, no matter how ill-advised that he thought that it was, he would take to her to Alexandria. He'd make sure that she was fully aware of the distance and the dangers that they'd face, but he wouldn't fight her on that. He wouldn't try to keep her away from her family and he certainly wouldn't try to keep her with him against her will. So, if she wanted to go, they'd go. They'd risk it. They'd risk their lives making a journey that they weren't prepared for because he'd have made the alternative unbearable.

He'd risk losing her all over again.

He'd risk losing her all over again in yet another scenario that would, at the end of the day, be entirely his fault.

The only difference would be that he'd lost her the last time because he hadn't been willing to tell her how he felt, and this time he'd lose her because he had. He couldn't help but let out a short and deeply bitter laugh at that idea. That, whether he tried to hide it or not, it didn't matter. His love for her was poison. His love for her would always kill her.

 _And is that convenient because you can only have a satisfying relationship with an empty fucking room?_

He tried to shake that thought off, though. Tried to put it out of his mind because it was too morbid to be thinking like that when _Beth Greene_ was somehow living and breathing downstairs. He should be jumping for joy and thanking every God ever worshipped by man instead of forcing back another round of desperate tears in his bedroom. He had a miracle under his roof and he needed to appreciate it for every second that he fucking could. There was no point worrying about what would happen when his truth was revealed, because he couldn't lie and he couldn't tell a partial truth, either. He couldn't do anything except tell her everything.

Respect her enough to be honest with her and respect her enough to trust whatever decision she made.

He'd told what he'd thought was her spirit that he would do that - told her empty room that he believed in her wisdom and in her ability to make good choices for herself - and he had to make good on that promise. A promise that she, of course, knew nothing about. He'd made that promise to himself as much as he'd made it to her, though, and he definitely did know about it. He remembered it and - as much as it might cost them both - he was going to honor it.

He forced himself from his bed and walked over to the dresser, grabbed the fruit cocktail, and started heading downstairs.

He could stay in there forever and never come up with the right words to say, so he wasn't going to waste another second away from Beth. He'd just go down there and hope that he was somehow able to speak to her as freely face-to-face as he'd been speaking to her fake spirit in her room. Hope that somehow he'd be granted one more miracle on this day of miracles and be able to express himself to her in a way that didn't make her life any harder than it already was.

…..

Beth had been expecting Daryl to return downstairs pretty quickly - to _be right back_ as he'd said - and as the minutes had ticked by she'd become increasingly concerned. She'd been able to tell by his footsteps that he'd gone into the spare bedroom on her parents' side of the house and had assumed that that was the room that he'd been staying in. Soon after entering the space, though, his footsteps had gone quiet and she hadn't heard a thing since. Whatever he'd gone to get, he wasn't occupied searching for it. He wasn't pulling open drawers and closet doors or anything like that. She'd supposed that he could have been looking through a bag or something, but how long could that take? And she'd never known Daryl to be a man with many possessions. He didn't have some big Mary Poppins carpetbag with everything but the kitchen sink inside.

Eventually, she'd come to the conclusion that he was overwhelmed by her sudden appearance. That the emotions associated with her resurrection had been too much for him. And, even more, that the realities of no longer being alone had been too much for him. That just like she'd felt exhausted after exercising her atrophied muscles too hard, he'd felt exhausted after exercising his atrophied interpersonal skills too hard. He'd pushed himself further socially than she'd ever seen him do and now he was hiding in his room because he couldn't handle any more.

Or he was hiding because he realized that he was going to have to tell her what happened to their family and he was trying to figure out how to break the terrible news. He was trying to come up with some way to tell her that everyone who they knew and loved was dead. That Rick and Carol and Noah and everyone that had made it out of the hospital that day and everyone that had been on the ground - a group of people whose identities she'd never been sure of but believed, because of several Grady orderlies' descriptions, might have included Maggie and Glenn - were all gone.

Through either one grand catastrophe or a series of horrors, they were all dead, and he had no idea how to tell her.

And her reaction to simply hearing her grandmother's name had probably done little to ease his concerns. He was probably afraid that she was going to have a complete breakdown. Probably afraid that her damaged brain was going to fritz out on him entirely and he'd be stuck dealing with broken wreck. Trying to comfort her when he obviously already had enough of his own pain to deal with.

She'd completely finished her soup and was almost through with the beans when she heard him start moving again. In a few seconds, it was clear that he was leaving the room and she looked up from her bowl and watched for him to come into view. When he finally entered the open portion of the hallway, he had his head hung low and she could see that he had something clenched in his fist. He started to head down the stairs and, about halfway, he looked up and caught her eye. He seemed surprised to see her staring at him and she gave him the biggest smile that she could: truly happy to see him and glad that he'd overcome whatever inner struggles had kept him in his room for so long.

She was so fucking beautiful that, despite everything he was feeling, he couldn't help but grin back at her. He stopped his progress on the steps for a few moments and just looked at her lovely little face. Like a deer caught in the headlights, he was momentarily paralyzed by her beaming smile. A smile that he'd thought that he'd seen for the last time.

And it suddenly hit him that _that_ might be the last time that he saw it.

That, after he revealed everything to her, he might never see that smile again. Never see it cast his way as truly and genuinely and unabashedly brilliantly again. Because once she knew, she might be afraid to smile like that at him. Afraid that he might get the wrong idea. Afraid that she'd be leading him on. Afraid that she'd be toying with his heart. She might censor her feelings in an effort to protect his.

She'd always smile, but maybe not like _that._

And she _did_ stop smiling like that, because she saw that internal drama play out in his face. Saw his happiness turn to sadness? Loss? Fear? She couldn't tell exactly what the emotions were but whatever reprieve he'd had from the anguish that had kept him in that room was gone. She silently cursed herself for putting on such a cheery display. She'd thought that he'd been struggling with how to break the bad news and now she'd gone and made it even harder on him. She was smiling like everything was okay and he thought he was going to have to destroy her happy little world.

She needed to let him know that she knew, she realized.

She couldn't let him torture himself over this. She'd been being selfish. She'd wanted to hold on to the joy of their reunion - hold on to that unbelievable majesty of being with Daryl again - but he clearly couldn't handle pretending anymore. Probably because he'd never liked to pretend and, more likely, because he didn't know that she _knew_ that they were pretending. He thought that she really didn't see the elephant in the room.

Or the glaring _lack_ of an elephant, as it were.

She was trying to figure out exactly how to broach the subject when he started moving back down the stairs again. As he got closer, she looked down to see what he had in his grip and, even though half of it was obscured by his large hand, she knew instantly what it was. A can with that glossy multicolored _Del Monte_ label that she remembered from her earliest childhood. That glossy multicolored _Del Monte_ label that had decorated precious tins stored on the upper-shelf of their pantry and had been her special treat of choice for years. That glossy multicolored _Del Monte_ that symbolized both one of her favorite culinary delights and, even more valuably, one of her favorite Greene family arguments.

 _Does it count as fruit?_

To which her parents had unwaveringly answered _no_ \- that it was just sugar disguised as fruit - and the children had never stopped trying to insist _yes_ \- that it was just fruit disguised as sugar. It was a losing but beloved battle and she'd fought it fiercest of all.

Because who wouldn't want to be required to eat fruit cocktail as part of a healthy diet?

All thoughts about tackling the topic of their fallen family were temporarily forgotten and the smile that came to her face was completely unconscious and uncontrollable. She clapped her hands together in excitement and looked up at him.

"Oh my God!," she exclaimed with glee. "Is that really fruit cocktail? _I'm_ not hallucinating, am I? That's really _fruit cocktail?!_ "

Just like it had the first time, her reaction to the syrupy concoction stopped his heart. When she'd discovered those cans at the cabin - when she'd beamed over such a simple pleasure - he'd realized that he'd wanted her to be that happy for the rest of her life. That he'd wanted to be the man that _made_ her that happy for the rest of her life. The man that brought that smile to her face day after day. And now, he was actually doing it. Not for all time - not like he'd wanted - but just for a few seconds. Just for a few seconds, he was getting to be the man that made her smile like that.

And he wanted to live in that moment forever.

That moment when she was joyous over a something that he'd gotten just for her. Something that he'd found entirely by coincidence, he now realized, but that he'd always saved - hadn't eaten for all those hungry nights on the road - just for her. That moment when he was absolutely and completely in love with her but when she didn't know it yet. When she hadn't been harmed or made uncomfortable by it yet.

That moment when she was happy and he loved her and they were together in their home.

That moment when everything was perfect.

He wanted to stay there, so he decided to let it play out. Bask in her glow until she took it away. He'd tell her everything that she wanted to know, but he wasn't going to bring it up. He was going to watch her eyes light up as she took her first bite of fruit cocktail and he was going to imagine kissing the juice off her lips while he still could. Before she became all too aware of the fact that he did things like stare at her lips and imagine kissing sugary trails down her neck.

"Pretty sure," he answered her with a grin. "Less them _Del Monte_ folks was lyin'. Tryin' to unload some unwanted kumquats or somethin'. If that's the case, we'll sue 'em for false advertisin'. Might win us a nice settlement. You know, for pain and sufferin'?"

"Flash those beautiful doe eyes in the courtroom, girl, and the jury'd be writin' us a big ass check," he teased her as he headed into the kitchen to grab the can opener and a fresh bowl and spoon. "Make them _Del Monte_ folks pay for breakin' a pretty girl's heart. Fuck, I'm kinda _hopin'_ it ain't fruit cocktail now. Could take you on a fuckin' cruise with our winnins' or somethin'. Live like high rollers on the high seas."

She was giggling through his whole speech - loving this side of him even though the reasons behind its appearance worried her - which is why he'd kept talking. Trying to tease more of that delightful sound out of her. A sound that he almost loved even more in its newer, slightly roughened form.

It was still light and airy and melodious, but there was an earthiness to it that suited her. It was the woodsy laugh of a forest nymph. It was more _Beth_ than Beth had ever been before.

It was the Beth who she'd been meant to be.

"I don't want there to be no fights later," he told her with obviously mock sincerity, sitting down across from her at the table. "So before I open this and we find out what we're dealin' with, we gotta decide what we're gonna do with the settlement money if it ain't really fruit cocktail. If you could go anywhere in the world - and, remember, this is on _Del Monte's_ dime - where would you go? Where should we jet off to?"

He surprised himself a bit with that question. It wasn't like him to solicit someone else's daydreams. He'd never been the type of person to engage in whimsical hypotheticals. He'd _become_ more of that type of person in the months since he'd been in that house, but - even so - his imagination was generally devoted to a hypothetical past rather than a hypothetical future. He supposed he was just stalling for time, trying to drag out the pleasure as long as he could.

And he _was_ honestly interested in hearing her answer.

He really _did_ want to know where she'd go if she could go anywhere in the world. What was Beth Greene's fantasy vacation spot? Would she hunt the Yeti in the Himalayas? Or search for a rare orchid in the Amazon? Where did her itchy little feet - her impossibly tiny, itchy little feet - long to scamper off to?

The question had surprised Daryl a little, but it had shocked the _hell_ out of Beth. As far as she recalled, he'd never made such a frivolous inquiry of her. Never expressed any interest in something that was the very definition of meaningless. A completely unattainable dream. And what struck her most of all was the _subject_ of that unattainable dream. The fanciful topic that he wanted to explore.

Escape.

The idea of getting away and going somewhere - anywhere - but there.

He wasn't just alone, she realized, he was trapped. He was feeling trapped in that house for some psychological reason or he was feeling trapped on this fucked up planet for the same reasons as everyone else. Reasons that had never seemed to get to him before - reasons that he had once seemed to actually _thrive_ on - but had now changed him.

He wanted to escape this life that he was living in. And maybe she'd been wrong earlier. Maybe he _did_ want to pretend. At least about this. At least in this moment. And she was more than happy to give that to him. Both because she wanted to give him what he wanted and because she wanted to pretend, too. She'd rather debate the merits of Maui versus Tahiti than hear about the terrible fate that had befallen her family.

So, she decided to play along.

"Well, first of all," she told him, struggling to be serious but more or less failing. "We have to go somewhere with fruit cocktail. That's a given. Unless...do you think we could get them to throw in a lifetime supply of the stuff with the settlement? Like we could have our own stash to take with us?"

"Course," he grinned, so happy she was going with it. So happy to be able to prolong this last blissfully ignorant exchange. "We'll be drownin' in it. Remember how movie stars used to have private planes just for their damn dogs and shit? Flew their fuckin' shihtzus to Shanghai? Well, we can have a plane just for our fruit cocktail."

" _Fruit Force One_ ," he laughed, christening a vehicle that - in his mind - would carry cargo far more precious than its namesake. No president ever made Beth Greene smile like _Del Monte_ did. "We'll have it with us no matter what. And we'll fly on _Fruit Force Two_. And we can go anywhere we want. So where'll it be?"

Honestly, as long as they had each other and fruit cocktail, Beth didn't care where the hell they went. And the fruit cocktail was pretty incidental. She just needed Daryl and she'd be happy. She didn't know how to say that without being sappy, though, and introducing unwanted emotions - unwanted _reality_ \- into his fantasy game. So she tried to think of something else that she could say, some dream location that she could offer him.

"You know, I always wanted to go to Paris," she said, because it was the first thing that came to her head. "I used to study French and I always wanted to go there. See all the art and the architecture and all that. Take a boat down the river and eat all the great food."

He was about to make an Eiffel Tower pun - make a joke taken straight from the French class that she'd just mentioned - when he remembered that he wasn't supposed to know that at all. _I used to study French_ she'd explained, as if it was new information to him, because - in her mind - it was. She'd never told him that before. But he knew. He knew because he'd been the crazy man that had travelled a thousand miles to go through her fucking school bookbag.

And she still had no idea.

"I mean, we'll have _Fruit Force One_ and everything," she continued jokingly, unaware of the emotions her choice of vacation spot had triggered. "But we'll need a well-rounded diet. And they have all the major food groups there. Croissants and pastries and cheeses. You know, all the really important ones. So we'll be able to stay healthy and strong. _An eclair a day keeps the doctor away_ , right? That's what I told them at Grady. But they fired their French chef anyway. Set my recovery back _months_ with that."

"But good for Jacques, he deserved a better job" she laughed, and then felt terrible for having brought up the hospital. For having tainted the fairytale like that. And the look on Daryl's face made her fear that she'd truly spoiled the moment. He seemed, at best, thoughtful. And, at worst, uncomfortable. She wanted to make a joke to get things back on track but couldn't think of anything and just defaulted to honesty.

"Sorry," she said softly, looking down in her own discomfort. "I feel bad for bringing that up."

He couldn't help the laugh that escaped him at her use of the phrase _I feel_. Laugh because it begged for an Eiffel Tower-based reply and laugh because that only underscored her obliviousness to the situation. Her complete lack of awareness of it all. It was a laugh of genuine humor and dark irony and even _he_ heard how out of place it sounded. Especially given the fact that she'd just been expressing remorse.

Completely unnecessary remorse for a completely innocuous comment. A mildly funny comment, given everything that she'd been through.

 _I feel bad for bringing that up._

He wanted to say _Eiffel like shit that I just laughed at you and you don't know why_ or _Eiffel like shit that you feel like you can't talk about the hell you've been through_ or _Eiffel like doing anything to make you smile again_.

"Well, you should," he teased her instead, smirking and hoping that she'd look up and really know that he was joking. "Bring up Grady all you want. But don't go talkin' 'bout _Jacques_ to me. Gonna bruise my ego with that shit. Here I am feelin' all good 'cause I got you fruit cocktail, but I can't compete with no eclair man. 'Specially if he's got a fancy accent and all."

She laughed after a few beats, not so much because it was funny, but because - yet again - it really surprised her. She knew that he was just teasing and having fun - trying to force the levity back into their conversation - but, still, it was an unusual way for him to go about doing it. Talking about competing with another man for her regard. Implying that he'd been jealous of the fictitious Jacques.

It was good.

But unusual. Like talking about her flashing her _beautiful doe eyes_ in their case against _Del Monte_ and saying the jury would have sympathy for the _pretty girl_. It was so unlike him to talk to her like that. It was unlike him to even acknowledge that she _was_ a girl.

"Don't worry," she assured him with a small smile, deciding to go along with the charade of needing to soothe his bruised ego. Because it was nice little charade for _her_ ego. It was nice to pretend that her opinion could impact him like that. "You've got a fancy accent, too. And you've got nothing to fear from Jacques. I'll take a squirrel man over an eclair man any day. As much as I'd like to, you can't live on sugar. And you can't kill a walker with a whisk."

"Actually," she laughed and shook her head, pointing at him. " _You_ probably could kill a walker with a whisk. I could actually see that. But not old Jacques. Just souffles for him. And, really, what's a girl gonna do with a souffle these days?"

He wasn't exactly sure what a souffle was but he was entirely sure that he didn't give a fuck. All he knew was that he'd just pretty soundly kicked the fictitious Jacques' ass and - even if it was a teasing victory over an imaginary foe - he'd take it.

She'd choose a _squirrel man_ any day.

A squirrel man with a fancy redneck accent who could kill a walker with a whisk.

He actually knew a ten-dollar word for that. A word that he'd picked from all those cooking shows that they used to play on public television. A word that Merle would mock him for using but that he really wanted to see how Beth would react to.

React to hearing spoken in that fancy redneck accent of his.

"Damn straight," he told her with a false tone of pride, moving his right hand around in a whipping motion. "I can aerate the _fuck_ outta a walker."

She threw her head back and laughed that forest nymph laugh of hers at _aerate_ just as he'd hoped and he laughed right back, And it felt wonderful and freeing and so fucking good. She was happy because of him - because of the _squirrel man_ \- and it made him so unbelievably happy, too. Until he finally realized what he was doing. What he had been doing since the moment that he'd offered her that piggyback ride.

He was flirting with her.

He was flirting with her like he'd been flirting with his fake spirit Beth for months. Flirting with her like she really was _Nurse Greene_. Like she was the girl who he'd teased about peaking at him in the shower. The girl who he'd proposed to with a homemade engagement ring and had enthusiastically called herself _Mrs. Dixon_. The girl who'd let him dance the pants off of her in their imaginary old world kitchen and who he'd insisted could make the Pope declare lust a virtue. The girl who he'd been saying _I love you_ to every morning and every night for months. The girl who knew that he thought that she had a great ass and that her blush made him crazy and that he wanted to kiss the living hell out of her every minute of every day. Knew it because he'd told her.

He told her all the time.

But the girl sitting in front of him - the forest nymph that was alive and breathing and laughing so beautifully in front of him - wasn't that girl. She wasn't the Beth who he flirted with. She wasn't the Beth who knew that 7-24-69 was his birthday. She was the Beth who had never played him her love song - never revealed that incredible coincidence - because she'd been so unaware of his feelings for her that she'd thought that he'd mock her for it. He was flirting her like she was the woman who he'd shared a life with - built a home and an entire _world_ with - and she thought it was all innocent. All light banter and teasing.

And soon she'd know that it wasn't and he'd never get to joke like that with her again.

Fuck, maybe he should just tell her, he thought. Get it over with. Maybe the longer he waited the more uncomfortable she would feel. Like she never would have never joked about going for a _squirrel man_ if she'd have known that he'd wanted to hear that as more than a joke. Like he was taking advantage of her somehow.

As she had before, Beth noticed the shifting emotions on his face: all various shades of negative. And, just as she had before, she misinterpreted the situation. He'd been joking about his skills at taking out walkers and, after a brief moment of shared laughter, all the humor had gone out of his expression. It took her a second to understand the mood change, but she'd concluded that it had been because the reference had brought up the elephant in the room: the horrible fate of their family. He'd been reminded of a time when his walker-killing prowess had been insufficient to save the people who he loved and had felt a wave of sadness and guilt over bragging - even jokingly bragging - about being able to do something that he'd once so tragically failed to do. Because, no matter what had happened, she knew that that's how he'd see it: he'd considered it his fault.

His failure to _aerate the fuck_ out of enough walkers to protect his family.

Unlike all the other times that she'd misunderstood him since their reunion, though, that time she chose to say something.

"Listen, Daryl,"she said softly and with a touch of resignation, reaching her hand across the table. It wasn't close enough to touch his hands: the good one of which still held the fruit cocktail and the bad one of which was resting in his lap. It wasn't even an _attempt_ to touch his hands. She was just laying it there for the offering. Extending her hand within reach should he choose to grab it. "I know you'd rather joke about Jacques than talk about what's really going on here. And that's okay. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. Not right now. But please don't blame yourself for it. And don't feel like you have to protect me from it, either. Because you don't. I already know."

He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. He knew what _he_ was blaming himself for, what _he_ didn't want to talk about, what _he_ was trying to protect her from, but what the fuck was _she_ referring to? And she had sounded so convinced and so sincere about it, too. So understanding about this truth that she supposedly knew but couldn't possible be the truth at all.

Could it?

His gaze had drifted to the table as he'd been castigating himself for flirting with her, but he lifted his eyes again and stared straight at her: saying the only thing that he could possibly think of to say in a voice that reflected every ounce of his confusion.

" _What?_ ," he asked bewildered, his brow furrowing as he took in her soft eyes and sympathetic expression

"I watched the house for almost a day," she explained, her voice remaining calm while she briefly bowed her head. "I wasn't sure at first, but I knew you were the only one here long before I knew it was you. I knew there was only one man living in this house. It wasn't until I saw you on the porch that I knew that man was _you_. But I was in the woods for hours knowing that I was either going to find a random guy living here or I was going to find the only living member of our family."

"I knew the moment I saw your face that they were dead, Daryl," she told him, doing everything she could not to reveal how much saying those words hurt her. Doing everything she could to be strong for him. "Dead or taken or something horrible. I know that. And, when you're ready to tell me, I want to know what happened. But whatever happened, I know it wasn't your fault they didn't make it."

He was stunned.

He had no idea what had caused her to take the conversation in that direction, but that didn't really matter. What mattered were her words. And her words killed him. He realized as she was speaking that he'd had an incredibly simplistic view of her experience. He'd just thought that she'd come home, saw him on the porch, walked out of the woods, and was now wondering where the rest of her family was. That he'd have to explain to her that, no, they weren't out on a run or digging a pit somewhere. They were in Alexandria. But, once again, he'd been an ass and completely underestimated Beth Greene. Of course, she'd cased out the property first and tried to assess the situation. Of course, she'd made sure that she'd known what she was walking in to.

And, knowing that he was living all alone, it was perfectly reasonable that she'd have drawn the conclusion that the rest of their family was dead. And he felt awful that he'd let her believe that for almost an hour now. That he'd decided to wait to let her bring the subject up - decided to bask in her fruit cocktail-fueled glow for just a little while longer - because she'd clearly _put off_ bringing the subject up in order spare him the pain of telling her the terrible truth.

And now she was trying to alleviate his guilt over the whole thing, too.

" _No,_ " he said firmly, his tone reflecting just how upset he was by her confusion and his part in perpetuating it. " _Fuck_ , I'm so sorry. You don't understand..."

"No, I _do_ understand," she cut him off, believing he was apologizing for his role in the tragic affair and about to explain how he really _had_ been to blame. How she didn't understand his failures. "I might not know the details but I know enough to know that it wasn't your fault. I know enough to know you did everything you could. I know enough to know that shit _happens_."

He'd let her down so many times. He'd let her get kidnapped, he'd let her get shot in the head, and then he'd left her for dead. And, in her mind, the same hideous fate had happened to everyone who they knew, too. Everyone who they loved was now _dead or taken_ or, according to her little catchall phrase, had fallen victim to _something horrible._ And, just as they had with her, all those things had happened on his watch. In her mind, he'd been there when these imaginary terrors had occurred and he'd walked away unscathed. And she was still convinced - still fucking _convinced_ -that it hadn't been his fault. That he'd done everything that he could.

That shit just happens.

"I took a bullet to the brain and became the kind off fucking girl that says _shit happens_ , you know?" she tried to joke lamely, thinking that hearing her curse like that was part of his stunned expression. "That's just the way of the world. I understand that. But we're together now. And I understand _that_ , too. We have each other and we have to be happy about that. _I'm_ happy about that. I'm so happy I found you, Daryl. You have no idea. And if you want to keep joking about taking trips to Paris and pretend like we're going to sue the fruit cocktail people, then I want to do that. And if you want to talk about what happened, then I want to do that, too."

He still couldn't believe that she thought that their whole family was dead and she was sitting there worrying about his feelings. Trying to assure him that he wasn't to blame. And now she was saying that she was so happy that they were together. So happy to have found him. And that they could do whatever _he_ wanted - whatever made _him_ most comfortable - and she'd mourn in silence in the meantime.

But, of course, he could believe it.

Because she was Beth Greene and that's what made her so amazing. That's what made her the girl whose death had driven him insane and made him abandon their supposedly fallen family in order to sit in her empty room and go through her things. Still, he was stunned enough not to say anything for a moment - not to go back to the business of correcting her horrible misunderstanding - and it was long enough for Beth to continue speaking.

"Let's just be _honest_ about what we're doing, okay?" she asked in conclusion, giving him a small but genuine smile. "My memory may suck at times, but I know you like honesty. And you can be honest with me, Daryl. I promise you, I'm not going to fall apart. I know I probably scared you by crying over _Mama Millie_. And, yeah, I'll probably cry when you tell me about everyone else, too. But I won't _lose it_. I can handle the truth. I _want_ the truth. Even if the truth is that we just agree to _ignore_ the truth for a while. I want that. Everything at Grady was a lie, Daryl. Everything they did...acting like it was _all for the greater good._ Like we were all lucky to be there. It was all a lie. Everything in my _life_ has been a lie for almost a year. But I'm free now. And I'm home. And I want honesty."

God, he could relate to that. Relate to living a lie. He'd just realized that that's what he'd been doing for months. His lie was far lovelier than the twisted world that she'd lived in at Grady, of course, and had been completely self-inflicted, but he could relate to the pain in her voice when she'd said _everything in my life has been a lie_. And, while she thought that he'd just been keeping truths from her since their reunion, he knew that he'd been keeping things from her for far longer than that. He hadn't been fully honest with her since that night when he'd walked in on her sleeping in her cell and saw Judy's little fist grabbing her breast and realized that he wanted her.

From that moment on, on one level or another, he'd been lying to her.

He was always going to tell her the truth about their family. And, by the time that he'd gotten up off the bed upstairs, he'd resigned himself to telling her the entire truth behind why he'd left them in Virginia. But something made him push to hear her voice her request again. To hear her fully commit to the path that he was going to force her down.

"You really want honesty?," he asked her after a beat, his voice low and rough.

"Yes," she said immediately and with total conviction.

"Like the full and complete truth?," he asked her again, making it absolutely clear what they were talking about, Unvarnished truth. Maybe because he wanted the reassurance - wanted to be able to look back and know that he'd warned her and offered her an out - and maybe just because he was stalling. "Total honesty?"

"Yes," she repeated, nodding her head and patting her hand very lightly on the table for emphasis.

He took a deep breath and was so nervous that he unconsciously reached up to place his hand on his chest, laying his palm over where her photo lay in his breast pocket, in what had become his self-soothing habit. As soon as he noticed what he was doing, he dropped his hand immediately and realized just how fucked he was.

This was going to be the hardest conversation of his life.

* * *

 _Yeah, so, I'm sure a lot of you guys were disappointed by that. I'm sorry that he didn't just jump her bones in the field. I bet a lot of you were hoping that he'd throw her up against a tree and have at it. And I love stories where Daryl throws her up against a tree and haves at it...but that just isn't this Daryl and it isn't this story. As a reader, I can totally understand why that might leave you feeling bummed and underwhelmed. But, as a writer, I couldn't really do it any other way._

 _That being said, there's still more to come, so there will eventually be some proper Bethyl action. Don't hold your breath for smut because that's totally outside of my limited skill set, but I imagine that you're all pretty sure by now that she's not going to give him the "let's just be friends" speech._

 _Wouldn't that be so fucked up if I did that, though? If she was like, "Yikes, Daryl, you're great and all...but I always had a thing for Tyreese. How's he doing?" After making you read 400 pages?_

 _(There was actually a point midway through writing this where I was going to have Daryl go out to Annette's grave, and I was really feeling sick then and at the point of killing this story, and I thought about having him find a grave marked Beth Greene. Like she had been the person that had bled out on the couch that he'd found when he first came back to the farm. She'd survived the gunshot and she and the muddy squatter had escaped from Grady and made it home, but she'd died there anyway. Died there from some random post-apocalypse disaster before he could find her again. And that's why her room had appeared so undisturbed...because she'd be the one still living there. Taking care of and watching over her own things. And, after she'd died, the muddy squatter hadn't raided it, because she'd meant something to him, too. She'd helped get him out of Grady and he'd cared about her. So he'd buried her and, for psychological or practical reasons, he'd moved on._

 _Wouldn't that have been evil? Can you imagine how Daryl would have reacted to seeing that grave? To seeing her name and, maybe, connecting those dots? Thinking that if he'd just left Alexandria sooner, he might have made it back in time? Never being able to know what really happened to her? Maybe even being tempted to dig up the damn thing to see if he could find a body? Was it really a grave or just a memorial? What the fuck happened to her? How insane would that have made him? It would have been so mean to do that to Daryl and to you, and I eventually came out of that place, but I just remembered it now and I thought I'd share it with you so that you'd know that - no matter how disappointed you are by this reunion - it could have been worse! She could be dead! Like doubly, cruelly, even-more-pointlessly-than-the-TWD-writers-made-her dead. Thumb in the eye, fuck you, kind of dead. So, that's something, right?)_

 _Anyway, thanks again for reading and I hope to see you all again for Chapter 12 when all truths shall be revealed! A group of walkers isn't going to come to the door and interrupt THIS discussion. He really is going to tell her everything. And she's gonna say more than "Oh." So please stick around! Take care and I hope you have a great week or so until then. :)_

 _PERSONAL NOTE TO SHY40 (GUEST COMMENTER ON )_

 _You've been such a strong supporter of this story and your most recent comments have really meant a lot to me...but I can never write you back because I can't respond to guest comments on ! So I read these things and they mean so much to me and I want to let you know that and I can't and, after your most recent post, I just had to break down and say something to you this way. If I had another forum, I'd say more than just thank you...but THANK YOU! I understand why you wouldn't want to create an account (or, at least, I can understand the reasons that made ME not do it for so long...and I get that you have your reasons, too,) but please know that if I could respond to you I would. Every comment I get from everyone really means a lot, but you've gone out of your way to say some super lovely and thoughtful things and have been a strong supporter of both me and this story at at time when I needed that support the most. So thank you. :)_


	12. Chapter 12

_Hello dear readers! Thanks so much for all your support for the last chapter! I especially appreciate all you folks that took the time to comment and let me know that you were okay with the slower placed reunion. I hope that I don't make you regret that because, writing this, I realized that it really couldn't be the final chapter either. I was hoping to wrap it up here - a nice even dozen - but it didn't work. So, there will be one more chapter to this story...so, once again, please bear that in mind as you're reading this and getting worried about the pacing. :)_

 _Thanks so much for reading! Hope you enjoy..._

* * *

She wanted honesty and he was going to give it to her. As hard as it was, he was going to do it. He just needed to take a second - try to figure out where to even begin - and while he took that second, Beth started talking again.

"It helps, I'll go first, okay?," she asked him gently, tilting her head in that way of hers. That single move that she could somehow use to signal so much. Confusion. Humor. Thoughtfulness.

Sympathy.

"What?," he replied automatically, puzzled by what she would need to be honest about.

"I'll go first," she repeated, sensing the pressure he was under and hoping to alleviate it a little. "With _the full and complete truth_. The painful honesty. I'll go first. I'll say that, sitting in those woods all night, I honestly thought that you were going to be a random stranger. I honestly thought that I was going to have to run again and I honestly thought that I wouldn't make it on the road alone in this condition much longer. And, as terrifying as that was, I honestly kind of hoped for that...Eventually, I honestly kind of _hoped_ for that…"

She took a deep breath, remembering the terror of the night before and trying to steady herself for what she was about to admit. Something that felt truly awful and shameful to her. Something that was a poor reflection on her character and a side of herself that she didn't like.

A side that she suspected, with horror, was new.

"Because I thought that, if you _weren't_ a stranger, you were going to be Glenn," she explained after a beat, unable to fully look him in the eye. "Figured that's why you were in Maggie's room all night. And I honestly didn't know if I could handle that. Handle being stuck in this house with him and his grief. Living with him in that kind of pain. That's how shitty of a person I must have become, because I honestly didn't want to be in that situation."

He was horrified for her. Horrified that that had been her experience and horrified that she clearly felt so distraught over it. She hadn't wanted to be trapped in a house with her mourning brother-in-law. She hadn't wanted to live all alone with his despair and she thought that that made her a shitty person.

He thought that just made her a _person_. An incredibly _normal_ person.

And it killed him because he knew that she thought that she'd escaped that fate. She thought that, by finding him there instead, she'd avoided that uncomfortable situation. But he knew that she hadn't. She'd just walked into a _different_ uncomfortable situation. She wasn't going to be stuck alone with a grieving man, but she was going to be stuck alone - at least until they could get to Alexandria - with an _insane_ man.

With a man who's delusionally in love with her.

She'd glossed over the part about him being in what she'd imagined was Maggie's room all night, but he hadn't. He'd heard that part loud and clear. Beth's sudden reappearance had driven all thoughts of _The Language of Flowers_ out of the window, but he was vividly reminded that he'd spent the entire night in her room working on her memorial. _That_ was the kind of shit he was going to have to tell her.

And, really, was that any less uncomfortable than finding a grieving Glenn?

At least she wouldn't have had to worry about a grieving Glenn looking at her when she bent over or misinterpreting her smiles or thinking thoughts she didn't want him to think.

Beth hadn't been able to really look him in the eye as she'd spoken, but she'd definitely been able to look him in the _face_ and the pained expression that she saw overcome him only confirmed her worst fears about what her thought process said about her. About the kind of person that she was and, maybe, about how much she'd changed. He clearly thought, as did she, that that was cowardly and cruel of her. Awful not to want to do everything you can to be a comfort to someone you love.

And that hurt her terribly - his respect meant more to her than anyone's and she was sure that she'd just lost some of it - but she was committed to push forward anyway.

Partly because she thought that it might make things easier on him. Maybe it wouldn't be so hard to tell her the terrible news when he realized that she was kind of a terrible person now. Or maybe it would make him feel better about whatever sins he believed he'd committed to know that she'd committed sins, too. But mostly it was because she wanted him to know - to truly _know_ \- how genuinely relieved she was to have found him. He thought his solitary presence there was going to break her, but it had _saved_ her.

It wasn't a wound, it was a bullet dodged.

It was one gut-wrenching bullet that she actually _had_ fucking dodged and he needed to get that.

She _needed_ him to get that.

"I couldn't handle the thought of you being Glenn," she repeated, getting ready to lay everything out as starkly as she could. Really make him see her reality, even if it cost her. "And that wasn't because I couldn't handle the thought of losing _Maggie_ , it was because I couldn't handle the thought of seeing _Glenn_ like that. So, until I saw your face, I was honestly kind of hoping for a stranger. Even though that meant I was probably gonna die on the run."

 _Fuck_ , he thought.

She'd rather have died than have been in that situation. She'd rather have fucking _died._

His stomach literally clenched at that. Not only because it underscored how much she didn't want to be in an emotionally charged environment, but because it also highlighted just how fragile her health was. She'd said it earlier and here she was saying it again: she thought that she wouldn't make it on the road much longer. She wasn't fucking ready to be out there. She wasn't ready to be out there and he was about to tempt her to take a thousand mile journey. He was about to resurrect all their family and friends - all those loved ones who she thought were dead - and tell her that all she had to do was survive another month on the road to see them.

And he was going to make her rather die on that road than live another day with him in that house.

Beth could see that he was troubled by her truth and she didn't blame him one bit. She was troubled by it, too. But, in her mind, she'd finally arrived at the good part of the story. The part where he saved the day. The part where she could relieve him of his anxiety. The part that she'd admitted her selfish thinking just to get to. And she wanted him to hear it for the good news that it was, so she forced herself to meet his gaze.

She looked him straight into his pained eyes and smiled a small, but genuine, smile as she continued.

"So, _honestly_ , Daryl," she told him, emphasising that word so that he would believe that what she was about to say was as important of a truth as any of the others she'd just shamefully spoken. "Finding you here? With tomato soup and fruit cocktail? My life's looking pretty good to me right now. And, no matter what you say or don't say, it's gonna keep looking good. Because I'm prepared and I'm ready to look ahead. To move forward. I'm alive, I'm free, and I'm at home with my best friend..."

She stopped suddenly, instantly self-conscious for having referred to him as her best friend. His surprise at hearing that was undeniable and she couldn't help but think that he wouldn't want to hold that title. But that didn't change the fact that it was true. He was her best friend. He was her best friend if for no other reason than he was pretty much her _only_ friend. Truth be told, she didn't really have any friends at all.

And that wasn't because they were dead.

Even when their whole family had been alive and together at the prison - even when life had still been some post-apocalyptic version of normal - she hadn't had any friends. Maggie was her sister and, no matter how close they were, that didn't truly count. Carol? Sasha? Michonne? They'd liked each other. They'd gotten along. But they hadn't really been _friends._

And, admittedly, she hadn't really been friends with Daryl, either. Not in a classic sense. But she'd _wanted_ to be. She'd wanted to be his friend and she'd always looked almost desperately forward to when he'd come and visit Judy. Always looked forward to giving him the day's rundown and telling him about their favorite little girl's latest accomplishments.

To her embarrassment, sharing those stories with him had always been the highlight of her day.

Judy had been her whole world at the prison - taking care of her pretty much her one and only role - and she'd shared those stories with everyone. Shared them because she'd wanted to and because they'd been basically all that she'd had to talk about. But she only ever really _looked forward_ to sharing them with Daryl. She'd often felt guilty over the fact that, whenever Judy had done something new or funny or noteworthy, her first thought had always been about telling Daryl and not about telling Rick. She always had told Rick, of course. But when Judy successfully built her first stack of red plastic cups, she hadn't said, _"Daddy's going to be so proud of you, Judy!"_

She'd said, _"Daryl's going to be so proud of you, Judy!"_

And part of that had been a painfully accurate reflection of Rick's distant parenting, but most of it had been a reflection of what Beth herself had cared about. When Judy had stacked those cups, Beth hadn't thought about how Rick's eyes would shine with pride. She'd thought about how Daryl's eyes would shine with wonder. She'd thought about how she'd get to see him happy - even if he could only show that happiness through those eyes and, maybe, a small grin - and how good that would make her feel. How great it was going to be when he came back from a hard day working the fences and walked into her cell - walked into that cell that she often felt so trapped in and acted like it was a relief to be there - and she could share sweet news.

Share something positive and hopeful and good.

She hadn't deluded herself into thinking that he actually saw her as anything other than Judy's babysitter. Hadn't thought that he'd considered her a friend any more than he'd consider anyone else in the prison a _friend._ She'd imagined that he saw her like she saw Carol and Sasha and Michonne: just a decent person that he was living with now. He was a grown man, after all, and she hadn't thought that he'd had any desire to truly establish a friendship with a teenage girl.

But she'd considered him _her_ friend nevertheless.

A friend by something other than default.

And that might have been ridiculous at the time, but now that it was really just the two of them, she tried to shake off her embarrassment over having made that declaration. They were all each other had and they _were_ friends, she told herself. In a world that was starkly divided between friend and foe, they were most definitely _friends._ That was undeniable. And, in a world where they were the only friends they had, they had to be _best_ friends, too. That was just language. That was just logic. So while she'd shut her eyes briefly after the words had escaped her mouth, she quickly opened them again and looked back at him as she spoke in conclusion.

"So, as far as I'm concerned, everything is going to be alright," she told him firmly, completely unaware of how many times she'd said them to him in his dreams and how many more times that he'd hoped that she would. " _Honestly_."

It took everything he had not to start weeping again. Not to start crying at hearing her voice those words. She'd called him her _best friend_ and told him that everything was going to be alright. And that was so beautiful that he wanted to cry. And it was so horrible that he wanted to sob, too. So horrible to know that she'd once valued him so highly and he was about destroy that. He was about to show her how he hadn't been a good friend to her at all. How he'd robbed her of almost every piece of privacy that she'd had. And how everything wasn't going to be alright because she couldn't trust him anymore. Couldn't trust him to be her _friend_ that just loved her and cared for her. Couldn't trust him to not want more from her than she wanted to give.

Everything wasn't going to be alright at all.

Everything wasn't going to be alright at all and it was all because of him.

He fought back those tears, though. He fought back those tears because there was one thing that was more important than all of that. One thing that was more important than everything that he was feeling. And that was correcting her mistake. Correcting her mistaken belief that their family was dead. He'd allowed that to go on for far too long. Far too fucking long and he had to set her straight on that. He had no idea how he'd tell her everything else, but he knew he had to lay out that basic fact first.

"Fuck, Beth," he started, unsurprised that to have such an unpoetic beginning. "You got it all wrong, girl. You got it all wrong and I'm so fuckin' sorry. They ain't dead. I get why you thought that, but they ain't. They're fine...least they were the last time I saw 'em. Maggie, Glenn, Judy, Rick, Carol...fuckin' everyone. We lost Ty and Bob, but that's it. Everyone's alive, Beth. They're safe and they're good. All of 'em."

Daryl might have been doing everything he could not to cry, but Beth wasn't. She'd been stunned at first - completely and utterly stunned - but her eyes had reacted before her brain could catch up and, by the time she'd truly processed what he'd said, tears were already streaming down her face.

They were alive.

"Judy's even fuckin' _walkin'_ ," he told her with a smile, wanting to focus on the good news for as long as possible. Feed her as much joy as he could. "Girl's toddlin' like a straight-up toddler. Got a fuckin' _motor_ on her. Used to need shit to help her, you know? Like to steady her and all? But she don't need that no more. She can go wherever she wants to go. Don't need no one's hand or nothin'...Wants it sometimes. 'Cause she sweet and all. But she don't need it. She's hardcore."

Beth couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe that Judy was alive and thriving and that, for once, Daryl was the one giving her the rundown. _He_ was the one telling _her_ the latest accomplishments of their favorite little girl.

Their _hardcore_ little girl who had a _fuckin' motor on her_ and was walking now.

"Holy shit, she's _walking?_ ," she asked rhetorically, her Grady-acquired vulgarity coming out in her surprise. "She's alive and she's walking? Our Judy?"

Daryl didn't know what he liked more: hearing Beth say _holy shit_ or hearing her call Judith _our Judy_. He knew that she'd used the word _our_ to refer to their family as a whole, of course, and not to her and him. But he'd still liked the way that it had sounded. Liked being a part of an _our_ that included her.

Even if it happened to include a lot of other people, too.

"Yeah, our Judy's walkin'," he repeated back to her, enjoying saying it as much as hearing it. "Walkin' and gettin' into all kindsa trouble. Can't turn your back on her for a fuckin' _second_ or she'll tear the whole goddamn house apart...Was gonna say she's turnin' Rick's hair fuckin' grey, but he was goin' in that direction already. But, I swear, she might even be turnin' _Carl's_ hair fuckin' grey."

" _Carl?!_ ," Beth exclaimed, shocked to hear his name. Daryl had said that everyone was alive and, she supposed she should have put that together, but she wasn't really putting anything together at the moment. It was all so unexpected and overwhelming. "Carl's alive, too?"

"Yeah, Beth," he answered with a slight twinge of pain in his voice, her response reminding him just how oblivious she still was to everything. How much he still had left to explain. "Carl's alive. And he's good. He's… he's been through a lot but he's strong, you know? And he's grown like a _motherfucker_. Shot up like a damn weed. Kid's almost as tall as me now. Still skinny as hell...not like in a bad way or nothin'. Not like he ain't healthy. He's just... he's just _Carl._ "

He was smiling again by the time that he'd finished that description and so was she. She could so picture that. She could so easily picture a lanky teenage Carl. It had been less than a year since she'd seen him, but she knew from her own youth how transformative that year could be. She remembered that Shawn had gone from being shorter than her mother to taller than her father in the space of a single Summer. They'd joked that they'd actually been able to see him grow in real time and her mother had even called him her _bamboo boy_. And it wasn't difficult to imagine Carl following that same path. To see his wiry form standing shoulder to shoulder with Rick: sharing the same height but differing in weight by about forty pounds of muscle.

She could picture it, but she didn't know _where_ she was picturing it.

If they were alive, then where were they?

"Where are they?," she asked him, voicing her thought out loud. And as soon as the question left her mouth, her mind caught up with something he'd said earlier. With those words and with his beard and with her entire impression of him having been alone on the farm for awhile. "And what do you mean they were okay _the last time_ you saw them? When was the last time you saw them?"

Well, this was it, he thought.

Here we go.

"They're in Alexandria," he told her, rubbing the hand that so desperately wanted to touch her picture for comfort against the back of his neck instead. "Haven't seen 'em in 'bout four months. Fuck. Maybe five? Haven't really been keepin' track. But it's been awhile."

That was the truth. He really didn't know how long it had been. It was also the truth, though, that he knew exactly how many days it had been since she'd supposedly died and he knew exactly how many days it had been since she'd supposedly died when he'd first hit the road. It would be pretty easy to do the math and figure out just how long he'd been gone, but he'd never bothered to and he didn't bother to now.

"Alexandria?," she asked, completely confused. She didn't know if she was supposed to recognize that name or not, but she didn't. She didn't know where that was at all.

"Virginia," he replied, shaking his head as he realized his mistake. Of course, she didn't know where Alexandria was. "Right outside D.C."

She had a million thoughts go through her head at once, but one burn brightest of all and she surprised them both by laughing. Laughing that new forest nymph laugh of hers and tilting her head in that way that was humor and confusion and disbelief and everything all rolled into one.

"So you finally got out of Georgia?," she asked him cheekily, remembering their fateful game of _I Never_ at the moonshine shack. "I never imagined you telling me that."

He let out a short bark of a laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it was such a joy to know that that memory - that _shared_ memory - survived in her mind.

And because he was eager to grasp onto any distraction from the hard conversation that lay ahead.

"Never imagined me tellin' you that, neither," he replied and searched his mind quickly for the rules of that damned game. "Guess that means none of us gets to drink, right? We're equally unimaginative so we gotta stay equally sober? Told you it was a shitty game."

"Yeah," she laughed lightly, recalling his initial impression of the activity. "It's kind of a shitty game...I always liked _Christ, You're Loud_ much better."

By the way that she'd said _Christ, You're Loud_ , he'd known that she was doing an impression of him but he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. And, for a brief moment, he worried that maybe neither did she. Worried that she might be remembering something that had never happened or, at least, had never happened with him. That she might have cast the wrong character in this mental story: imagining him playing someone else's part. Before he could go too far down that road, though, Beth continued talking.

"It was a game I used to play when we were together after the prison," she explained, sensing his confusion and completely understanding it. She was sure that she'd never told him about this before. She'd never told him because it would have ruined the game. "You always used to complain that I made too much noise. You're like a ninja, you know? But I'm like a normal _human being_ and I actually make noise when I walk in the woods. Leaves crunch beneath my feet. I don't hover over them like you do. And you always used to look over at me and just say _Christ, you're loud_...Actually, most of the time you'd just mumble it under your breath. But that was like your mantra. _Christ, you're loud_. And that was like my little game. I would count how many times you would say it in a day. Try to make it as few as possible...I wasn't very good at it, though, I think my record was three."

She was laughing by the time that she finished describing her post-prison pastime and he was frowning. He'd been willing to jump onto any diversion from the story that he had to tell and he would have normally loved to have had a window onto the inner world of Beth Greene, but the world he'd just glimpsed through that window was so awful. So deeply upsetting to him.

She thought it was funny, but there was nothing funny about it at all.

He'd been so constantly critical of her that she'd made a fucking _game_ out of it. Every day, she'd woken up knowing that he was going to criticize her for the same fucking thing in the same fucking way and she'd never once given him shit over it. She'd just made a game out of it and tried to see how infrequently she could earn his scorn.

And her record had been three times.

 _His_ record had been three times. Because that's what that really was. That was his record of how he'd treated her and the best he'd ever done was only faulting her for being too loud three times in one day.

And the worst part about that - if there was, indeed, only _one_ worst part about that - was that it wasn't even a fair criticism. He thought of her as being loud, but she really wasn't. She wasn't particularly _quiet_ , and she certainly wasn't as stealthy as him, but she wasn't really loud. And she had very rarely been loud enough that it had actually been a problem: a risk of attracting walkers or scaring off game. He'd just been so unbelievably _aware_ of her. He'd been so fucking aware of her and her movements and it had just been easier to chalk that up to her being loud. To pretend that she was noisy and drawing attention to herself through her actions. He honestly didn't remember saying _Christ, you're loud_ all that often, but he believed that he had. And he imagined that, most of the time, he'd really been saying something else entirely.

 _Christ, you're walking too close to me._

 _Christ, you're walking too far away from me._

 _Christ, I can fucking hear your hips swaying and it's killing me._

 _Christ, I want you way too fucking much right now so could you PLEASE stop reminding me that you're here._

He'd been overwhelmed by her constant presence and he'd had no idea how to handle that. And, apparently, he'd used _that_ as his outlet. He'd adopted a little vocal tic in the form of a perpetual putdown.

And he'd gone to that well, at minimum, three times a fucking day.

Beth stopped laughing when she saw that Daryl wasn't joining in and felt guilty for having brought up her little game. She hadn't really known why she'd mentioned it at all and, judging by the look on his face, it had definitely been a bad choice. She realized too late that it could have come across like she was complaining about their time together. Like she'd thought that he was overly critical of her and that she'd chosen now, for some ludicrous reason, to dredge it up.

Rather than get into that, though, she took it as a sign that they needed to get the conversation back on track. She still had so many questions - had more questions now than she'd had before - and she could assure him that she'd had fun playing _Christ, You're Loud_ later.

"So how did you all end up in _Virginia?_ ," she asked, returning to the narrative of their miraculously living family. "And how did you all end up _together?_ How did you find them? After...after I got taken, I'd hoped that somehow you'd find me, you know? But I never expected you to show up with Rick and all them. How did you do it? How did you find each other?"

Those questions were good, he thought. Those questions were easy to answer. Well, not _easy._ The story of how their family came back together and made their way to Alexandria was rather complicated, but it wasn't personally revealing. It wasn't going to expose him and it wasn't going to harm her. That would come later. That would come with the story of why he'd returned.

But the story of how they'd gotten there, he could manage.

"Chased after the car that took you," he told her, maintaining a death grip on the can of fruit cocktail. He hated revisiting that night even briefly, but he figured that he needed to start at the beginning. And he also wanted her to know that he'd tried. He'd failed, but he _had_ fucking tried. "Chased after you all fuckin' night, girl. All night and all day. Ran 'til I hit a fuckin' fork in the road. Hit a goddamn _crossroads_ and I just...I just collapsed…"

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath and then continued to tell her the rest of the tale. He told her about being found by Joe and his Merry Band of Assholes and being recruited into their travelling show. He told her how they'd come across Rick, Carl and Michonne and how, after the dust had settled, the good guys had somehow walked away. He didn't mention that he'd tried to offer up his life for theirs because it had been an impulse decision that he'd long felt some guilt over. He'd been willing to die and abandon the search for her and, though he still didn't know how else he could have handled that situation, it bothered him. He also left out the parts about Rick biting out Joe's throat and Carl almost being raped - figuring those details were needlessly awful - and simply let the term _evil fucks_ and his complete lack of remorse when reporting the men's deaths speak for itself.

He went on to tell her about meeting up with some of the rest of their family, plus a few new friends, at Terminus. As he had with the New Year's altercation with Joe, he sanitized the Terminus chapter of the story: simply saying that they had been held prisoner there and that they'd managed to escape with Carol's surprise assistance. He left out the part about Carol being banished and allowed Beth to assume, as everyone else had, that she'd just been separated from the group after the prison attack: though that had been more about streamlining the narrative rather than protecting Beth from the grisly truth behind what had really happened to Karen and David. He imagined that he'd tell her all that eventually, it just didn't seem like the time. And that led neatly to the joyous reunion with Judy, which helped any questions that might have arisen about Terminus and that ugly chapter dissolve into the cheerfully teary background.

Unfortunately, the next portion of the tale was the part about searching for her again. Chasing that car with the white cross. Coming back to the church to form a rescue party after Carol had been taken. Kidnapping the Grady cops and trying to negotiate for her release.

Watching her get killed.

And that chapter was so hard to tell. So fucking horrible to revisit and relate as series of events that used to end with _and that's when you died_ and now ended _and that's when I left you for dead._ Beth didn't seem bothered by it at all, though. She just seemed truly engrossed in the story and so he tried to focus on that. Focus on the goal of informing her - filing in all those gaps that she deserved to have filled - and ignoring all the emotions it stirred up for him. It had taken everything that he'd had, but he hadn't cried and he'd been able to meet her gaze at least half of the time.

He considered that a victory and was proud of himself for remaining so in control.

Beth's impression of his performance had been completely different, however. She'd watched him battle to stay on top of his emotions - struggle to keep those tears at bay - and had been truly surprised to see him so upset. She'd been caught off guard by the despair in his voice when he'd talked about fruitlessly chasing after the car that had taken her and by his obvious guilt over being sidetracked by Joe and those _evil fucks_. And, while he'd thought that he'd hidden it well, his pain over what had happened at the hospital had been absolutely palpable: a living thing in the room that she swore she could practically _see_ pulsating at his side. He'd even reached his hand up as he were going to clutch his chest at certain points throughout the tale, though he'd always stopped himself and returned his grip to the can of fruit cocktail instead.

And that had been incredible to witness.

She knew that Daryl wasn't an unfeeling person, of course. In a lot of ways, he was actually one of the most sensitive people she'd ever known. But she'd never seen him _display_ so many of those feelings. Other than his breakdown at the moonshine shack - and their earlier reunion in the field - she'd never seen him so overtly emotional. The story he was telling her was remarkable, but hearing him tell it - watching him tell it - was almost just as fascinating. At first, it had felt like she was seeing a new man, but she'd quickly realized that that wasn't it at all. She was just seeing more _Daryl_ than she'd ever seen before. There wasn't anything new about the sides that he was showing her, she was just seeing them much more fully. She wasn't catching them in quick peeks and fleeting glances, she was staring at them head-on.

And she was completely mesmerized by the experience.

After leaving Beth's supposedly dead body in the back of that ambulance, Daryl was relieved to return to the less traumatic aspects of the narrative and recount the family's trek to D.C. He explained how they'd tried to get Noah to Richmond in her honor and was unsurprised by how moved she'd seemed by that effort and how disappointed by the unsuccessful outcome. He decided on the fly to leave out the fact that that had been the point at which they'd lost Tyreese. He'd died on a mission made, in part, in her name and he didn't want her to think that that meant she'd played any role in his demise.

She already knew that he was gone, so he figured the details didn't matter.

He then told her how they'd headed to D.C. in search of some semblance of government or community and had eventually been found by Aaron and brought to Alexandria. He told her about how Rick was a sheriff again and Maggie was a mini-mayor and Carl was by far the coolest kid in town. But he had friends his own age and maybe even a girlfriend, too, and he didn't seem to mind being the resident teenage badass.

As much as Daryl had hated the place, he did his best to paint a pretty portrait of that surreal suburbia. Tried to play up how safe the community was and how nice the homes were - with running water and power and sewage - and how well everyone had settled into their new lives there. He dwelled on it for awhile, both because he wanted to assure her that the people they loved were comfortable and secure and because this was the last good part of the story.

The last bit before she learned what her _best friend_ had done and how everything wasn't going to be alright.

The last bit before she started wishing that she'd found a mourning Glenn instead.

"So, it's a real home," he told her in conclusion, though he'd never actually seen it that way. "Can't compete with no prison or nothin'. But, if you're one of those normal people that likes a normal fuckin' life, it's good. It's good for them. They…they miss you like fuck, but they're happy there."

"Why weren't _you?_ ," she asked automatically, sensing he'd come to the end of his speech and unable to remain silent any longer.

She had so many questions. So many questions and she'd been silent almost the entire time that he'd spoken. There had been a few _Oh, my gods_ and _I'm so sorrys_ and _Are you kiddings?_ , but other than those spontaneous utterances, she'd stayed quiet. He'd obviously been struggling to tell the tale and she hadn't wanted to break whatever spell he'd been under. She'd never seen him so emotional before and she'd never seen him so plain talkative before. She'd never seen him throw himself into a narrative and tell a story like that and she hadn't want to interrupt him. Still, it had been clear that - no matter how hard he tried to spin the tale of Alexandria being a magical place - he hadn't liked it there. Maybe everyone else was truly happy - she didn't think he was lying about that at all - but _he_ hadn't been.

He'd hated it there.

She was sure of that.

"What?," he asked her, so accustomed to her thoughtful listening that he'd had no idea what statement she'd been reacting to.

"Why weren't _you_ happy there?," she explained, trying to catch his eye though he seemed to avoid her gaze as soon as she'd restated the question. "Why didn't you want to stay in Alexandria? Why did you leave?"

He couldn't help the sigh that escaped him upon hearing those questions. Couldn't help the way he looked away from her and tightened his impossibly tight grip on the can of fruit cocktail. He'd already exhausted himself by getting to this point in the story and he had even started yet. Hadn't even gotten to the hard part. And there Beth was, perceptive as fucking ever, cutting straight to the heart of the matter. She'd seen through his charade and had known that he'd despised Alexandria. She'd seen that and now she wanted to know why.

And he started to give her an answer.

And answer that was true, but wasn't the truth at all.

"Fuck, girl," he told her after a deep breath. "You know that kinda place ain't me. Wasn't built for white picket fences and that shit...I'm supposed to be livin' in Cell Block C, you know? Not on _Cherry Blossom Lane_ or whatever. Ain't supposed to be livin' in a place like that. House with fuckin' granite countertops and stainless steel appliances and fancy shit I don't even know what to call. Was never meant for that life. I didn't like it. And it didn't like me."

This wasn't what he needed to be telling her - it wasn't really the reason why he'd left - but he'd felt compelled to tell her all the same.

"None of those Alexandria fucks were gonna miss the _squirrel man_ ," he said, referencing her earlier description of him in comparison to the fictitious Jacques. "They wanted an eclair man and that ain't ever gonna be me."

She could absolutely see that, of course. Could see how he would be uncomfortable living some parody of an upper-middle class suburban lifestyle. She had a hard time imagining him even using a knife and fork, so the idea of him feeling awkward dining in a neatly appointed breakfast nook or some Martha Stewart-style kitchen seemed perfectly reasonable to her. And, while he'd depicted the people there as kind, he'd also obviously considered them coddled. Soft. Elitist. And she could understand why he wouldn't have felt welcome among them, either. Or, even if he had felt welcome, why he wouldn't have appreciated that reception. Why being embraced by that community wouldn't have been something that he'd have desired.

That didn't really explain why he'd left, though.

She didn't think that Daryl had ever really felt particularly _welcome_ or _at home_ anywhere. She was pretty sure that he was far too accustomed to feeling awkward and out of place and, honestly, largely unwanted. And, as much as she was confident that he was still human enough to be hurt by that, she also thought that he'd long ago accepted that as part of his life. She didn't think that he had some dream world that he was striving for and that Alexandria had somehow failed to measure up to. She didn't think he'd ever had a dream world at all and, even if he had, she was sure that that dream world would have died years ago.

Right along with everyone else's.

So why did he _really_ leave?

It wasn't because they didn't appreciate the squirrel man.

"So you came all the way back here because you just didn't _like it_ there?," she asked incredulously, making it clear from her tone and that all-informative cock of her head that she didn't believe that for a second. "You left everyone behind because you weren't an eclair man?"

Despite every argument that he'd made to himself upstairs, there was a knee-jerk part of him that just wanted to say _yes_. Wanted to stick with that story and leave it at that. He couldn't, though. He'd already known that and her response had made it undeniable.

She knew there was more to it.

She fucking knew.

"Alright, Beth," he told her after a beat, forcing himself to look her in the eye. He'd never considered this strategy, but he found himself talking before he even had a chance to fully think it through. "You said you wanted the painful fuckin' honesty? _This_ is the point of the painful honesty. _This_ is the point that could hurt you for no fuckin' reason. I'll tell you the truth, girl...Told you I would and I will. But this is your chance, okay? This is your chance to back out and just know that I came back 'cause I wanted to. I came back 'cause I wanted to and you found me and everything can be alright. Everything can _still_ be alright if we just leave it here."

He seemed so tortured. He seemed so tortured by whatever truth he was keeping from her and she wanted to just let him off the hook. He'd said that this was her chance, but she couldn't help but think that it was really _his_ chance. This was his last chance not to say whatever it was that he didn't want to say.

She wanted him to say it, though. She really wanted to know why he'd come back to the farm and she couldn't help but think that part of him wanted her to know why, too.

So, she pushed.

"Is that what _you_ want?," she asked gently, holding his gaze despite his attempts to evade it. "Do _you_ really want to just leave it there?"

If he did - if he really and truly did - she'd let him. She'd let it go. Her family was alive and she was safe and at home with Daryl and, if the price of that was a little mystery, then she'd be willing to pay it. She'd give him his mystery if that's what he really needed.

But her curiosity wasn't going to let her give it to him without a bit of a fight.

And he couldn't give her that automatic _yes_ that she was looking for. Because she'd been right. She'd known him even better than he did. He didn't really want to leave it there. As much as he wanted to avoid this conversation, he _had_ to have this conversation. He _had_ to fucking tell her.

He had to.

"No," he sighed after a long pause, his eyes dropping to the suddenly hypnotizing can of fruit cocktail. "I think...I think we fuckin' _should_ leave it there. Think you ain't gonna like what I've gotta say. Think it's gonna make shit hard when it don't have to be. But... _fuck_ , if I don't tell you. it's the same as fuckin' lyin' to you. Same as fuckin' lyin to you and I don't wanna do that no more."

His phrasing struck her, of course, and made her wonder what he'd lied about to her in the past. That wasn't really the issue, though, and she decided to stick to the topic at hand.

"So don't," she told him with a small smile, though she knew he couldn't see it. "Don't lie to me. Just tell me the truth and we'll handle it, okay? Even if I don't like it, we'll handle it. I promise."

He'd been fighting it since he'd started talking, but he couldn't fight it any longer. He started to cry. Not profusely. He wasn't weeping or sobbing. But a few errant tears escaped him when she said _we'll handle it_. When she said it _twice._

 _We'll handle it._

 _We._

She called them a _we_. That could have been a simple function of English - a _you_ plus an _I_ equals a _we_ \- but it hadn't felt like it. It hadn't felt like a casual pronoun. It had felt important. It had felt meaningful. It had felt like the first time that he'd seen _we_ scrolled in her beautiful handwriting in that Pablo Neruda poem that now decorated his dresser shine. And he felt like everything that he was about to say was going to snap those two precious letters in half. Was going to completely shatter that we that he loved and needed and wanted so much. But his silence would break it, too. Or, at least, rob it of all its value. It would make it a mere pronoun.

A simple function of English.

And he couldn't have that, either.

"I lost it when you died, Beth," he told her and then almost laughed at that word choice. It implied that he'd gone crazy, but he hadn't gone crazy at all. He'd saved that for much later. "Didn't lose my _mind_...just lost everythin' else. Nothin' fuckin' mattered to me anymore, girl. _Nothin'_. I was...I was like a fuckin' walker, you know? I had _one_ purpose. _One_ goal. All walkers wanna do is eat and all I wanted to do was keep our people alive. That's _it_. That's _all_ I cared 'bout. That's the _only_ thing I fuckin' cared 'bout."

He'd said that last part so emphatically - wanting to fully convey to her how mindless he had been then - but the strength of his voice implied a certain level of zealousness that hadn't been accurate at all. He shook his head and let out a dark huff of a laugh.

"Honestly, I _barely_ fuckin' cared 'bout that," he amended and then felt the need to amend again. "I mean, I _did_. I _did_ care 'bout it. But that's just...that's just 'cause I'm fuckin' _programmed_ to, you know? I'm the fuckin' _squirrel man_ and that's what I do. That's who I am...but that's _all_ that I was. For months. That's _all_ that I fuckin' was."

He almost laughed another grim laugh as his mind flashed on a memory from that horrible chapter: a memory of him literally being the _squirrel man_. He'd killed several of the little rodents and was in the process of dressing them when, out of nowhere, he'd almost started to cry. He'd always had respect for the lives of the animals that he hunted, but that afternoon he'd felt a wave a true guilt because it had hit him that he had killed something _better_ than him. Those squirrels with their little walnut sized brains had had richer lives than he'd had. They'd wanted to find mates and have babies and raise families. They'd wanted to store nuts for winter and prepare for the future. They'd wanted to sleep in warm patch of sun on a nice day and scamper about in the trees.

They'd cared if it fucking rained or not.

They'd had a spark of life that he hadn't had and he'd taken it from them. And he'd felt terrible about that at a point when he hadn't thought that he could feel much worse about anything.

 _God_ , that had been a dark time.

"And I thought 'bout you," he went on after a moment lost in his squirrel man memories. He'd been looking at her for the first part of his speech, but saying this he had to look away. Had to turn his gaze back to that can of fruit cocktail. "Thought 'bout you all the fuckin' time. And I just _missed_ you so much. And life was just…just _empty._ Just so fuckin' _empty_ without you, girl. You were dead and _I_ was the ghost. I was the ghost and I was just... gone."

She was absolutely shocked to hear the her death had affected him like that. Shocked to hear that he'd missed her _so much_ and thought about her _all the fuckin' time_. She honestly hadn't thought that anyone would have been particularly distraught over her death. Her parents would have been, of course, but they had already passed on. And she imagined that Maggie would have mourned her, but - until a few minutes ago - she hadn't known if Maggie had ever even heard that she'd died.

Fuck, she hadn't even been sure that she'd survived the prison.

Maggie was strong, though. She was accustomed to life in a brutal world and, even if she had been the brunette who the orderlies had seen screaming in the Grady parking lot that day, Beth hadn't believed for a moment that her sister wouldn't get past her death.

And, probably, pretty soon.

As for the rest of them - the people who she'd known had been aware of her death, the people who had been in the hallway that day - she thought that they all would have moved on _really_ soon. Rick? Carol? Daryl? They had all lost people far closer to them than she had been: spouses, children, siblings. And they had all seen far more traumatic things than a girl getting shot in the head, too. She hadn't thought that her death had been a life-changing event for any of them.

She hadn't thought it had been a life-changing event for anyone but _her._

And, sitting there listening to Daryl talk about it, a large part of her still resisted that idea. Thought that his breakdown after her death probably hadn't been about _her_ death at all. That if Carol had been the one shot that day instead, the outcome could have been the same. It had been obvious that he'd left out the worst parts of the story about what happened with Joe and at Terminus. He'd clearly gone through all kinds of hell between the time that she'd been taken and the time she'd supposedly died. And a part of her couldn't help but think that he just might have snapped that day no matter who had been killed.

She'd just been one death too many.

But an even bigger part of her wasn't processing that element of things at all. Because she remembered Daryl in the days after the prison fell and he'd seemed much like this _ghost_ he was describing. She had a sense of what he might have been like in those _empty_ months and she was trying to brace herself for where this story was leading. For how this behavioral change had caused him to leave all their family and friends behind. How it had fed into some destructive thinking or catastrophic event that had made him leave a safe and secure home - abandon the holy grail of the end of the world - in order to come back to her farm.

She'd told him that they'd handle the truth even if she didn't like it. And, the more he spoke, the more worried she became that she really _wasn't_ going to like it at all.

She was going to hurt for him. She was going to hurt for him _terribly_ because she already was.

Just seeing him like that, she already was.

"I never really left Alexandria, girl, 'cause I never fuckin' _lived_ there in the first place," he continued after few beats, finally able to drag his eyes away from the fruit cocktail and look at her again. "Passed my fuckin' days there, but it weren't _livin'_. It weren't a _life._ I was just killin' fuckin' time. Takin' care of business. Bein' the fuckin' _squirrel man_."

After keeping it in vicious check the whole conversation, his hand now had permission to reach over to his pocket: grabbing hold of that talisman that he wanted for comfort but needed for her to understand the next chapter of the story.

"And one day Glenn comes and gives me this," he told her, laying the photo down on the table between them. He set it down but he couldn't bring himself to completely pull his hand away, so he left it resting there with his index finger lightly brushing up against the side of the frame. Maintaining just the smallest amount of contact for reasons he didn't fully understand. "He gives me this and I saw your face again and I just...I just fuckin' _knew_ I had to come back here. I had to come back here. I was never meant to be in Alexandria, girl. Was never meant to be there and I saw your face and it was just like a fuckin' beacon callin' me home. I just...I couldn't have this be all I had left of you. Couldn't have _this_ be all there was. I just..."

He'd come back to the farm because that picture had just been so fucking _inadequate_ and having her sitting right across from him - living and breathing in all her beautiful three-dimensional glory - brought back every ounce of the gut-wrenching insufficiency that he'd felt that day in the tower. That anger and that loss and that grief all flooded his system in a rush - his system that was already overwhelmed by that entire conversation - and he wanted to jump out of his fucking skin.

His skin that was too hot and too tight and, _fuck_ , it was just all _too much._

He shoved himself away from the table instead and started pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

" _That_ was all I had, Beth," he said when he could finally bring himself to speak, stopping his frantic movements to point a desperate and shaking finger towards her picture. "Do you _see_ that? That little piece of fuckin' plastic? _That's_ what you were. That's _all_ that you were. You were just that little piece of plastic. I was a _ghost_ and you were that little piece of fuckin' _plastic_. And the only way outta that...only fuckin' solution to that was to come home. Come back to the farm. That was the only thing I could do. I had to...I had to have more of you than _that_ , Beth. And I couldn't be a ghost no more. I just couldn't do it..."

The part of her mind that had been denying that his breakdown had truly been about her couldn't deny it any longer. The pain and rage and disbelief in his voice when he'd talked about her being reduced to a piece of plastic was like nothing she'd ever heard before. And she'd heard a lot of people talk about a lot of losses. A lot of heartache and grief and railing against the injustices of God and the universe. But she'd never heard anyone sound like that.

And this was coming from _Daryl Dixon._

Daryl Dixon talking about _her._

And that seemed like the end of the story, too. _That_ was the story. This horrible shoe that she'd been waiting to drop had, apparently, just dropped and it was _this._ He'd left Alexandria because of her. Because he'd been empty and lost and, one day he'd seen her face, and decided to return to the farm where he could have more of her than that little piece of plastic.

"You came back because you _missed me?_ ," she asked him, her tone fully reflecting all the surprise and wonder she felt at that notion.

Christ, she was so sweet, he thought. So sweet and so kind and so trusting. She just thought that he'd missed his friend and he was going to have to tell her it was so much more than that. He was going to have to tell her it was so much more than that when she was already completely caught off guard by _that_ revelation. Her disbelief at the idea of him missing her that much hadn't gone unnoticed and it only made what he had to say next so much harder.

He gripped the back of the chair that he'd once been sitting in - literally bracing himself for what he was about to say and ignoring the pain that throbbed from placing so much pressure on his still healing left hand - and took a deep breath.

"I came back 'cause I _love_ you," he told her, forcing himself to look her in the eyes. To look at her beautiful confused face: her head cocked to the side in that baffled bunny expression that he'd teased her about having during his pretend wedding proposal. " _That's_ the painful honesty, girl. I love you and I'm sorry 'bout that. I'm fuckin' sorry 'cause I know you don't want me to. Know you don't wanna be stuck in this house with some crazy man that fuckin' loves you...But I do. I can't fuckin' help it. I love you, Beth. I'm...I'm _in_ love with you. And that's why I came back. That's why I'm here."

He dropped his gaze and Beth was grateful for the reprieve. Grateful to have a moment to collect her thoughts after that declaration because it had left her head - and her heart - completely spinning.

 _I love you, Beth._

 _I'm in love with you._

Before she'd gotten shot, she'd have felt nothing but pure joy upon hearing those words. Those words would have been everything that she'd ever wanted to hear and she would have been climbing across that table to throw her arms around Daryl's now slumped shoulders. Pull him into the fiercest embrace and declare with unabashed glee that she loved him, too. She was in love with him, too. And, even though he'd grown up in a place as ugly and uninviting as that moonshine shack, she'd have traveled hundreds of miles to visit it, too. She'd have made that exact same pilgrimage if he'd died because she thought the idea of him being reduced to a little piece of plastic was unacceptable, too. Horrible and awful and so grievously wrong, too.

Because Beth Greene was very much in love with Daryl Dixon and had been for a very, very long time.

But that was precisely the problem.

Because, in those first hazy months after she was shot, she'd actually thought that they'd been in a relationship. She'd remembered his face and his voice and his loping stride. She'd remembered how she'd felt when she was around him: somehow both safe and nervous, secure and excited. She'd remembered him standing in the doorway of her cell and looking at home there. She'd remembered drinking with him on a moonlit porch and singing for him someplace beautiful.

They'd just been flashes and impressions but they'd meant so much to her. They'd carried so much weight in her damaged mind and she'd assumed - completely and unquestionably assumed - that he'd been her boyfriend or maybe even her husband. She hadn't been sure of the formality of their arrangement, but her memories had seemed to span across a wide period of time and multiple locations and she'd firmly believed that, whatever love they'd shared, it had been long-term.

Long-term and _mutual._

And that belief had sustained her during that earliest, roughest portion of her recovery. When she'd felt trapped in her body and in that room and with those people - when nothing had made sense and everything had seemed dark and hopeless - Daryl had been what had kept her going. He'd been the reason that she'd fought to live another day. Because every day could be the day that she remembered their first kiss. Every day could be the day that she remembered what had happened when he'd finally stepped through that doorway to her cell or what had happened when she'd stopped singing that night or what kind of drunken passion had overtaken them when they'd stumbled off that porch.

But those memories, of course, had never come,

Instead, she'd remembered that when he'd stepped past the doorway to her cell it had been to put his arms around Judy and not her. She'd remembered that the spark that she'd felt between them that night on the porch has set the shack on fire in a very literal way. That wood and drywall and dilapidated furniture were the only things that had burned that night and they'd stumbled platonically off into the woods rather than tumbling into some bed. She'd remembered that she hadn't stopped singing for him in that beautiful place because they'd fallen into each other's arms.

She'd stopped singing because she hadn't wanted to sing him a love song for fear that he'd hear the longing in her voice. That he'd discover her feelings for him.

Feelings that he hadn't reciprocated at all.

That had been the most traumatic memory. That had been the one that had made her pulse pound and left her gasping for breath and had made a legitimately concerned orderly come in to check on her when the monitors she'd still been attached to had set off all kinds of bells and whistles. Her world had been so fragile then and it had all centered around her memories of this man and she'd remembered, in an instant, that the man who was her world hadn't cared for her much at all. Hadn't cared for her as anything more than a friend, at best. And that all that nervousness that she'd thought had been her butterflies of love had been her anxiety over that love being discovered.

Of being exposed as a stupid girl with an unwanted crush on a man who was so far out of her league it was crazy.

A man who'd never looked her way until she'd had a cute baby in her arms and had only been her partner because they'd been thrown together in the gruesome aftermath of a horrible crime.

A man who'd just been _stuck_ with her.

So, while she knew that she still had some gaps in her memory, she had absolutely no doubt that Daryl Dixon had not been in love with her when she was alive. That everything he was saying to her - though it clearly felt real to him now - hadn't been real then.

He hadn't loved her.

He hadn't loved that girl in the photo he was so upset about.

He hadn't.

She had no idea how to express that, though. Had no idea how to say that he didn't really love her. He'd called himself a _crazy man_ and, while she didn't think that he was truly insane, she did think that he was deluding himself about this. That he'd concocted some story about her - about them - that had offered him a way to escape Alexandria. He'd been miserable and desperate and he'd wanted a way out. And chasing after the dream girl in the photo had given him the license to leave. Had given him an explanation for his despair and an excuse to abandon his friends and his family.

"You were in love with _her?_ ," she asked him, pointing at herself in the photo.

"What?," he replied, finally lifting his head up. He'd been preparing himself for her response, but he wasn't expecting that.

Of course, he was in love with her. What part of that hadn't been clear?

"The girl in this photo," she said, looking him dead in the eye. "You were in love with her? Me? Before I died?"

"Yes," he answered on a sigh that was half confusion and half exhaustion. He was so wrung out after getting to this point in the tale - after finally laying everything bare - and he didn't understand her questions. He was naked and exposed before her and she was acting like she still wasn't seeing him.

"No, you weren't," she said softly, dropping her gaze from his. She couldn't look him in the eye as she said this. She didn't want to destroy the lie that he'd told himself: both because she didn't want to do that to him and because she didn't want to do that to _herself_. She was still in love with him and, even though she knew it was the truth, she wasn't relishing hearing him admit that he didn't love her in return.

But it had to be said.

"You didn't love me then, Daryl," she went on, still staring at the photo for some sort of emotional protection. "You didn't love me at the prison and you didn't love me afterwards. I don't know when you think that changed, but it wasn't...It's not real. You don't really love me."

It had never occurred to him that she wouldn't believe him. Admittedly, he hadn't had much time to think about it, but - even if he'd had years to prepare himself for this conversation - it would have never once entered his mind that she would doubt him. He could have easily spent his entire life imagining different ways that she would say that _she_ didn't love _him_ , but he never would have considered her saying that _he_ didn't love _her_. He never would have imagined her questioning that. He could tell by the sadness in her tone, though, that she wasn't questioning his _sincerity._ She didn't think that he was lying to her. She just thought that he was mistaken. That he was misinterpreting his own feelings.

And, though that shocked him at first, he quickly - and painfully - realized that it was completely reasonable. This was the girl who he'd manhandled and compared to a _dumb college bitch_. This was the girl who hadn't played him _My Good Fortune_ because she'd thought that he'd mock her for singing a love song. This was the girl who'd made a fucking game out of how much he'd criticized her for a fault that wasn't really a fault at all.

A girl who he'd criticized simply because he'd wanted her too much and hadn't know what to do about that except blame her for reminding him that she existed. Blame her for every twig that her impossibly tiny feet had snapped. Blame her for a sound that had been like a starting pistol in his brain and had made him want to slam her up against the nearest tree and coax a completely different set of sounds out of her entirely.

 _Christ, you're loud._

"I _do_ love you, Beth," he said gently, his voice rough and filled with regret. "Was really fuckin' shitty at _showin'_ you. Was shitty at showin' you 'cause I didn't _want_ you to know. 'Cause I know you don't love me and I knew it would just fuck things up. But I _do_ love you, girl...And I loved you before you died. Loved you before you were taken...Loved you for a long fuckin' time."

He could tell that she still didn't believe him, but she remained silent as if trying to process it all. Her gaze was still on the photo and he suddenly felt far too looming and large and domineering standing over her, so he sat back down in the chair and grabbed a hold of the can of fruit cocktail.

"Don't know _when_ I fell in love with you," he told her, overcome by the desire for her to believe him. He'd wanted to hide this from her for so long - from the moment that he'd first realized it, he'd wanted to hide it - but something about the sadness in her voice made him need to convince her. "Probably loved you for awhile before my dumb ass caught on. But I knew I loved you the day you found that fruit cocktail at that cabin. Remember that?"

She did.

She hadn't remembered it until fairly recently, when they'd gotten a case of canned pears at Grady and it had triggered a recollection of standing in front of the pantry at a random cabin, but she did remember that day. Seeing those cans of fruit cocktail - cans that she'd so strongly associated with the comfort of her childhood - had given her hope in the bleakest of hours. She'd been able to hear the whole Greene family debating whether it counted as fruit and it had felt like her father - who'd argued the _no_ side as strongly as she'd argued the _yes_ \- had been watching over her when she'd needed him the most.

Like his spirit had been taking care of her while his headless body had lay rotting in a field.

She would have never imagined that that moment had held any significance for Daryl though and, overwhelmed by his revelation that he had indeed loved her when she was alive, the best she could do was nod in response.

"Was the worst fuckin' week," he reminded her, as if they didn't both know all too well. He then had to laugh slightly thinking that that hadn't been true at all. They'd still been together then. The worst weeks had actually laid ahead. "Least I thought so at the time...Was the worst fuckin' week and you found those cans and you just smiled like you'd found a fuckin' _unicorn_ , you know? Like everythin' was beautiful and magical and good. Even though it was tough as fuckin' shit. You smiled and I thought, _fuck, I wanna see her do that every day_...Took me a second to realize what that was. 'Cause I ain't never felt like that before. But I finally put it together. Like, _fuck, I love this girl... I fuckin' love her_ , you know?"

" _Seriously?_ ," she asked in almost a whisper, completely stunned by his recounting of that scene. Completely stunned to learn that, as she'd been standing there looking for some shred of hope to cling to, he'd been standing there thinking _fuck, I love this girl._

That was the moment Daryl Dixon had fallen in love with her.

That was the moment.

How could that possibly be true? How could he _possibly_ have loved her then?

"Yeah," he told her, grinning slightly despite the awkwardness of the situation. Grinning simply because it was such a fond memory and because Beth Greene always was cute when she was confused. "Why you think this was in my room and not the kitchen?... 'Cause I was never gonna eat it. Weren't fuckin' food to me...reminded me of you. Reminded me of that day. That's why I kept it."

She had absolutely no idea what to make of that story or of the man sitting in front of her. This chatty, emotional, open Daryl Dixon with a beard halfway down his neck and tears shining in his eyes. This grizzly mountain man with a foul mouth and a greeting card heart.

 _Weren't fuckin' food to me._

 _Reminded me of you._

 _Reminded me of that day._

It would have seemed like a dream come true had it been a dream that she'd dared to dream at all. She'd escaped Grady without a scratch, made it safely home, and found Daryl Dixon there waiting for her with open arms. Giving her a piggyback ride and warm tomato soup. Telling her that their friends and family were all happy and secure and thriving in a stable community. Telling her that he's in love with her and that he has been for almost a year.

He's been in love with her since that day.

It would have seemed like a dream come true, but it wasn't. And that wasn't because she didn't believe it was _true_ \- she actually did believe that Daryl Dixon had fallen in love with Beth Greene that day - it was because she knew that she wasn't that Beth Greene anymore. And it was obvious that he wasn't that Daryl Dixon, either. She'd been shot in the head and endured almost a year of captivity and he'd gone through his own tortured journey, too.

They weren't the same people they'd been that day at the cabin.

"I've changed," she told him after a moment, forcing herself to look him in the eye. "I'm not...I don't know if I'm still the girl you love."

"Course you've changed," he told her immediately, somewhat surprised that was the direction she was taking things but, for once, not struggling to find a response. "Got shot in the fuckin' head, girl. Had to survive that all on your own. Fight your way back and fight your way home. 'Course you've changed."

She was taken aback to hear him basically vocalize her own thoughts. Taken aback not only by his immediate understanding but by his _tone_. When voiced in her head, those thoughts had sounded so desperate and so sad, but out of the mouth of Daryl Dixon they'd sounded so harmless: like simple facts of the universe that everyone accepts and no one is bothered by.

The sky is blue, water is wet, and you've changed.

"But that don't change how I feel 'bout you," he told her seriously, but then let out a small laugh and shook his head. In the spirit of honesty, that had to be amended. "Actually, it kinda fuckin' does...Never told you how much you impressed me, but you did. Impressed the hell outta me. Already thought you was strong...but makin' it through this year? Goin' through what you went through to get here? Gettin' back to where we're having a conversation at your family's fuckin' _dinner table?_ That's so fuckin' _badass_ , girl...I've known some tough motherfuckers in my time, but you take the cake with that shit."

"You thought I was _strong?_ ," she asked him somewhat awestruck. She'd be hard pressed to pick one element of that conversation that was the most shocking, but she found the idea that he'd thought that she was strong - in the past tense, in the old incarnation of herself - almost as incredible as the idea that he was in love with her.

He hadn't needed the reminder, but the surprise in her voice regarding that assessment painfully underscored how much he'd kept from her and the impression that that had left her with. He hadn't wanted her to know how much he'd liked her - and later loved her - and so she'd barely had any idea that he'd liked her at all. That he'd valued and respected her.

He had the chance to correct that now, though, and he was definitely going to take it.

"Yeah, I thought you was strong," he told her confidently, looking her dead in the eye. He wanted to do this right - to show her all the respect that he never had - so he decided not to just give her the easy compliment. Not to just leave it at that, but to really explain himself. "We're doing the honesty thing and I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't always think that. Took me a long time to see you for what you are. You...you gotta a strength that's all your own. It's a special kinda strength and I'm a special kinda dumbass so it took me awhile to see it. But I saw it. I really did... And I see it even more now. Which, I gotta tell you, I didn't think was fuckin' possible. But there you go. You're even fuckin' stronger than you were...any idea how amazin' that is, girl?"

She couldn't believe that he was talking to her like this and she couldn't help the blush that flooded her cheeks at the praise. She would have appreciated any compliment from Daryl Dixon and she would have appreciated being called strong by anyone, but having Daryl Dixon call her strong was on another level entirely.

'You see this?," he asked her, showing her the still healing cut on his left hand. She let out a gasp when she saw the damage, but he continued talking before she had a chance to reply. "Cut myself makin' some spikes to secure the road. Bled like a stuck pig and it hurt like a bitch. Was here all by myself and it got infected. And I had to go into town and try to find some meds, knowin' I was weak. I was sick and weren't at my best and... I was scared out of my fuckin' _skin_ that day, girl. Was fuckin' terrified that I come across a group of people or some Governor fuck or just some random shit that I couldn't handle 'cause I was weak."

She was horrified to hear that he'd gone through that, but she had little time to process the reality of his injury. All she could really focus on was his comment about being afraid - of being _fuckin' terrified_ \- and the ease with which he'd just admitted it. He'd felt weak and scared and he'd just told her that like it was nothing.

"And you got _shot_ in the fuckin' _head_ ," he went on, getting to the reason why he'd told her this story: to convey the stunning contrast between their experiences and his amazement by her. "I had a _cut_ on my _hand_ and had to make it _one_ fuckin' day out there by myself and I was scared...Not sure how long it took you to get here from Grady, but I know it was longer than a day. So, yeah, I think you're strong as hell...Stronger than me. 'Cause I don't think I coulda done that. Don't think I woulda survived what you survived."

" _God_ , you've changed," she practically gasped, her voice full of wonder. She hadn't meant to say that, but it had been all that she'd been thinking and it had escaped her nevertheless.

"Yeah," he replied automatically, knowing it was absolutely true. He had changed. He'd changed in so many ways since he'd last seen her. "Changed a lot….Think some of it might be for the better, though. Least I hope so anyway. Been...been tryin' to be a better man, you know? Tryin' to learn from all the shit I did wrong…"

He didn't want to think about the ways in which he might have changed for the worse. The ways in which he'd lost touch with reality and deluded himself about so many things. He wanted to focus on the changes that he hoped she was referring to. On the good changes.

The changes that he'd made for _her_.

"Did a lot wrong with you, Beth," he told her after a beat, his voice laced with sadness. "Never treated you right and I know that. And I wanna change that. I wanna be good to you…"

She'd been kind in glossing over whatever discomfort she was feeling regarding his unwanted declaration of love, but - as much as part of him wanted to let the matter go - he felt like he had to revisit the topic. To let her know that the differences she was seeing only went so far. That she didn't have to fear that this new Daryl Dixon - this crazy man that loved her - had completely lost his sense of place in the world.

That he didn't understand what their relationship was and would always be.

"But that's _all_ that's gotta change, okay?," he said firmly, forcing himself to hold her gaze. "Nothin' else. I know...I know it's gotta be awkward knowin' how I feel 'bout you. I know that ain't what you want. But _nothins'_ gotta change between us. I don't expect nothin' from you _at all_...I _never_ fuckin' did. That's why I never said nothin', alright? So don't...don't worry 'bout hurtin' my feelins' or lettin' me down easy or whatever…'Cause I'm a dumbass, but I ain't _that_ big of a dumbass, you know? Never thought for a second that you'd be into me."

He'd sounded so serious and so sincere and so thoroughly convinced of her lack of interest that, despite the emotional weight of the moment, she burst out laughing. He'd said something to a similar effect before - back when he'd first told her that he loved her - but she'd been so focused on his feelings that she'd ignored the fact that he'd felt that they were unrequited. That part hadn't really registered with her at all. And she couldn't help but laugh at the fact that this was the man who'd she'd believed might have been her husband - had spent weeks happily and gratefully believing was her husband - and he didn't think that she would ever be _into_ him.

Not _for a second._

And then she felt terrible because, judging by the look on his face, Daryl had taken that laugh as confirmation of her disregard. He'd flinched slightly and turned his gaze back to the can a fruit cocktail and she wanted so badly to take it back. But she couldn't. She couldn't retract the laugh, but she could try to explain it.

"I'm sorry," she told him, unable to hold back a small smile that she hoped didn't undercut her statement. "I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at...You really didn't think that I'd be into in you? You're...you're _Daryl Dixon_. Of course, I'm _into_ in you."

She felt somewhat guilty for downplaying her feelings like that. He'd exposed himself so much to her and all she'd done was say she was _into_ him. She might have only been nineteen - or, actually, now maybe twenty - but even she heard how juvenile and insufficient that sounded. He'd chosen that phrase first, of course, but that didn't change how wrong it seemed. Because he might have chosen that phrase, but he'd said the L word, too.

He'd said that, too, and she wasn't ready to do the same.

He'd been willing to risk that. Willing to risk loving her when she didn't love him back. He might think that she was the stronger person, but she knew that he was the brave one. She didn't have that strength in her, no matter what he thought. She still didn't know if Daryl Dixon would truly love the Beth Greene who she was now - if she'd live up to the ideal of this woman that he had in his head - and she couldn't put her own love on the line without that.

Because, in her mind, she'd already lost his love once.

She'd lost it that horrible afternoon at Grady when she'd remembered that she'd never had it at all. And she couldn't go through that again. Couldn't make a declaration that would seem to seal a covenant between them when she wasn't sure who _they_ even were.

Beth thought that it was inadequate, but it was more than Daryl ever thought that he'd hear and he was absolutely stunned. Even though she'd never _ever_ been so cruel, he hadn't been able to stop himself from replaying her words over and over in his mind searching for any signs of sarcasm.

 _Of course, I'm into you._

He didn't see how there could be any _of course_ about that. He couldn't imagine that statement being honestly spoken out of the mouth of any woman, let alone out of the mouth of Beth Greene. But he also couldn't see how she could have been mocking him, either. She hadn't been mocking him at all. He looked back up from the fruit cocktail again and, seeing her sweet smiling face across the table, there was no doubt in his mind that she'd meant that.

She'd fucking _meant_ that.

 _Of course, I'm into you._

He couldn't think of a single response to that revelation - and she couldn't think of a follow-up - so they just stared at each other in silence for a few charged moments. It didn't take long for Beth to become overwhelmed by the intensity of his gaze and the reality of the situation and, feeling like a true lovestruck teenager, she buried her blushing face in her hands and let another light laugh.

Her laughter soon died, though, as the darkness allowed her to start thinking clearly again. She began to put all the pieces of their conversation together and see the true enormity of what Daryl had said.

Of what he had _done._

He'd been in love with her when she was kidnapped, he'd been in love with her when she'd been killed, and her death had driven him to despair. He'd forced himself to get their family settled somewhere safely but had left them - and all that precious security - behind to come back to live alone on her farm. To find more of her than just that picture. And he'd been living there for months. And now she was back. Against all odds, his long lost love was back from the dead.

He'd said that he never expected anything from her, but how could he not?

Really, under those circumstances, how could he _not?_

She didn't think for a second that he had been lying when he'd said that. She firmly believed that, had she told him that she only loved him as a friend, he would have made some joke about that being a sign of her good taste - or, maybe, in this new version of himself, made a sincere comment about his gratitude for that friendship - and then he would have never brought it up again. But she _hadn't_ told him that she only loved him as a friend. She'd hadn't given him the response that he'd been anticipating. The response that had created his lack of expectations. She'd admitted that she had feelings for him, too. Sure, she'd copped out and minimized the extent of those feelings, but it had been enough to change the dynamic between them. Enough to stun them both into silence. Enough to make him look at her like _that._

Look at her in the way that made her have to bury her face in her hands.

He'd sacrificed literally everything for her and now she was going to have to tell him that she wanted to take it slow?

She had no idea how to do that, but had no idea how not to, either. As much as she wanted to, she wasn't ready to climb over the table and kiss him like her old self would have done. There was a part of her that screamed that life was short and time was precious and she didn't have a moment to waste. That she should risk it because they might not have a tomorrow. They both knew that all too well. But a bigger part of her screamed that their love was too precious to waste, too. Too precious and too wonderful to screw up because they rushed into things.

Because even their _friendship_ was too precious and too wonderful to screw up because they rushed into things.

She'd thought it was true before, but she definitely knew it now: Daryl Dixon was her best friend. He was the best friend she was ever going to have. Someone who'd chase night and day after a fucking car to find her. Someone who'd mount a rescue mission to save her. Someone who'd avenge her death and mourn her loss for the rest of their life. He was the best friend she was ever going to have and she couldn't risk losing that. And, if they tried for something romantic and failed, she had no doubt that she would. She'd be the dream girl who let him down - the girl who he'd sacrificed everything for for nothing - and it would kill her. Maybe he'd be mature enough to handle that, but she wasn't. She knew that. Even if he never held it against her and did everything he could to stay her friend, she wouldn't be able to stay _his_. Not like they were now, anyway.

Not even close.

So they had to take it slow. Get to know each other again and make sure that this was what they both really wanted. Even if it was just a few days, she thought. They didn't have to take forever. Just a little bit of time to adjust now that their worlds had been turned upside down. She still wasn't sure how to say that, but the silence had gone on too long and she felt compelled to start talking anyway.

"I can't…," she stumbled, her face still buried in her hands. She wasn't ready to look at him, but she took a deep breath and forced herself to at least speak openly. To say everything that she'd just been thinking. "I can't lose you as a friend, Daryl. I want...I want to be _more_ than your friend, but I can't _lose_ you as a friend. I can't screw this up...so I need us to take it slow, okay? Make sure I'm still the girl you think I am. Make sure this is still what you want."

After she got that out, she finally had the courage to look up at him again and watched as a stunning kaleidoscope of emotions cascaded across his face.

He'd known that she'd been serious when she'd said that she was into him, but that hadn't prepared him for the little speech that she'd just made. He couldn't believe that she really wanted to be more than friends. And, not only that, but that she was worried about risking their friendship to get there. She'd just expressed the exact same dilemma that had kept him silent about his feelings the whole time that she'd been alive. The same predicament that had paralyzed him for so long, that had made him criticize her instead of compliment her, that had made him run for that fucking funeral home door.

 _I want to be more than your friend, but I can't lose you as a friend._

 _I need us to take it slow, okay?_

That request pleased him and pained him in equal measure. He loved hearing her refer to them as an _us_ \- especially now, especially knowing that she really did mean something by it, that it wasn't just a function of English - but it killed him to think that she felt like he was going to rush her into anything. Killed him because it was so untrue and because it was so _incredibly_ logical. He was the crazy man who'd traveled a thousand miles to go through her fucking closet, after all. _Of course_ she'd think that he'd want to haul her off to bed the instant he got the green light.

And he _did_ want to haul her off to bed that fucking instant. His bed. Her bed. Or forget the bed altogether and just take her right there on the table. He did want that.

But not really.

Not really because he'd been given a miraculous second chance to do right by Beth Greene and that didn't involve hauling her off to bed as soon as he could. When she was still recovering from a bullet wound. When she'd just spent God knows how long on the run, spent all night thinking her family was dead, spent all day hungry and tired. When she wasn't sure of his feelings for her. When she thought that there was a chance - even a fucking _chance_ \- that he didn't really love the woman who she was now.

When he hadn't earned it at all.

He didn't really think that he _could_ ever truly earn her affection, but he'd certainly never done anything to deserve this Beth's regard. Not this real, living, breathing, beautiful Beth in front of him. He'd never told this Beth about all the ways that she impressed him and amazed him and inspired him. He'd never told this Beth about all the different and wonderful things that she made him think and experience and feel. He'd never apologized to this Beth for all the things that he'd done wrong. He'd been trying to do better by his spirit Beth for months, but he'd only been doing better by the real Beth for a couple of hours now.

And the real Beth Greene was not the kind of girl who you hauled off to bed after being a halfway decent fellow to for a couple of hours.

So, he wanted to take things slow, too. Both because he shared her reservations about damaging their friendship and, far more importantly, because she _deserved_ that. She fucking deserved to know that the man she was with really and truly wanted to be with _her_. That he loved her for who she had been and for who she was now.

And he knew that he _did_ love who she was now. He knew that all of the essential elements of Beth Greene - all those things that made her _her_ \- were still there and unchanged. He had no doubt about that at all. It wasn't important that _he_ knew that, though, it was important that _she_ knew that. And he really wanted to say something about it. He wanted to alleviate any needless anxiety she might have about possibly disappointing him. Assure her that he'd love her no matter what. But now that she'd felt like she'd had to request to take things slow - now that she'd demonstrated that she was feeling under some kind of pressure - he didn't know if he should. He worried if he tried to push her into believing that he did indeed love her - the her who she was now - that she'd think that he was trying to push her into _doing_ something about that love.

That he wasn't okay with taking it slow.

Once again, the silence between them had gone on too long and he knew that it was his turn to end it. He had no idea how to do that, so decided to just go with honesty since it had seemed to work pretty well so far.

And with teasing, because that always worked pretty well, too.

" _Honestly_ , Beth," he told her, his mouth quirking into a small grin on saying that word. A word that now felt like it's own kind of game. "I'm glad you said that. Was worried you was gonna wanna rush into shit. You know, since I'm _Daryl Dixon_ and you're so _into_ me and all? Thought you might not be able to keep your sweet little hands off me. But I'm not that kinda guy. Just 'cause I'm stupid in love with you don't mean you don't gotta romance me a little. Wine me and dine me some...And I gotta romance _you_ a little, too. That's how it works, right?"

His silence following her statement had made her nervous, but his response made her laugh delightedly if for no other reason than it was so completely unexpected. Daryl saying that he was _stupid in love_ with her like he said it every day. Talking about needing to be romanced and needing to romance her in return.

It was just so ridiculous.

So beautifully, wonderfully ridiculous.

He was absolutely thrilled to hear her laugh, but part of him became concerned that she might think that he had _only_ been joking. In typical fashion, he'd leaned more heavily on the side of teasing than on the side of honesty and thought that she might not have understood what he'd really meant.

"Seriously," he said, interrupting her laughter. His tone hadn't been stern, but it had been just as serious as his use of that word had implied and it had caught her attention right away. "I'd wait ten years to hold your _hand_ , girl. I never...I never thought I'd fuckin' _see_ you again. Never thought I'd get to _talk_ to you again. So this...this ain't somethin' I'm gonna be impatient 'bout. You don't need to worry 'bout that. 'Cause I don't wanna fuck this up neither. And I wasn't lyin' when I said I wanna treat you right. I wanna…"

He stumbled, unsure how to end that sentence. He knew what he wanted her _to have_. He knew what he wanted _to give_ her. He just wasn't sure how he was going _to do_ that. He didn't know how to express what he wanted because he didn't know how to conceive of their relationship unfolding in any real world way. This wasn't a game of _Remember When_. This wasn't one of his stories. This was real fucking life. And, in real life, he'd never thought that they'd be going _anywhere_ , so he struggled to figure out what _going slow_ would actually look like.

What _did_ he want to do to move their relationship forward? Move it forward in a _good_ way? In the _right_ way? In the way that she _deserved?_

And then it came to him. An idea that, for the first forty years of his life, he would have considered the most pathetic idea imaginable but, for the remaining years, would always consider one of the best ideas that he ever had.

"I wanna court you," he told her, finally able to finish that sentence with a smile. If reading a romance novel was one of his life's biggest surprises, then actually using the knowledge that he'd gained from it was beyond a shock. But that's exactly what he wanted for her. For them.

A period of courtship.

And not because it was romantic, but because it was _practical._ It placed boundaries on their physical intimacy, but allowed them to be intimate in other ways. Ways that would still be consisted with friendship if she decided that she wanted to stop it there. Ways that, hopefully, she wouldn't regret when she realized that she actually wasn't that _into_ this crazy man after all.

Because that really was the likeliest outcome, he thought.

More likely than not, she'd decided that he wasn't who she thought he was or hoped he would be. She'd come to her senses and realize that she deserved so much better than him. She'd realize that whatever fleeting appeal he had - an appeal that he couldn't even begin to understand - didn't withstand scrutiny. When she saw him for who he truly was, she'd decide that they'd be better off as friends. And that was going to disappoint him. At this point, it was going to disappoint him terribly, but he'd get past it.

At least on some level, he'd get past it.

He'd get past it because, at the end of the day he'd be happy to be her friend. Happy just to have her in his life at all.

But it would _destroy_ him to be her regret. To be her mistake. It would destroy him to know that memories that he would no doubt continue to treasure would be things that she'd want to forget. That she stored them in a dark corner of her mind and tried to keep them hidden away. And a chaste courtship would decrease the chances of that happening.

It would allow things to progress without letting them go too far.

" _What?_ ," she laughed in surprise. Teasing about romance was one thing, but saying that he'd wait a decade to hold her hand? That he wanted to court her? She couldn't help but briefly wonder if she was still in a coma at Grady. If any of this was really happening at all.

She knew that it was, but it was still so surreal.

"I wanna court you, Ms. Greene," he repeated his smile widening even further when he remembered to address her correctly. "You're a lady and I'm tryin' to be a gentleman and I wanna court you. All nice and proper. We'll keep everythin' old-fashioned. Your job'll be to rest up and get better and my job'll be to treat you right. And we won't do nothin' Jane Austen wouldn't approve of. Nothin' her fancy pants couldn't write 'bout, okay?"

" _Jane Austen?_ ," she asked on another laugh. She hadn't thought about that name in years, but - aided by the context of their discussion - she recognized it right away. And it was name she'd never thought she'd hear come out of the mouth of Daryl Dixon.

Maybe she _was_ still in a coma at Grady.

"Yeah, me and Jane go way back," he told her with a laugh of his own, delighting in her surprise and thrilled to be able to tease her about this like he'd once dreamed of doing. " _Pride and Prejudice_ is my favorite fuckin' book. Can't _believe_ you didn't know that...See? _This_ is why I need to court you. So you can get to know me better. I ain't just a pretty piece of meat, girl. The squirrel man's got a brain."

He tapped his temple for emphasis and she laughed her forest nymph laugh again.

God, she loved this side of him.

Loved seeing him joking and laughing and happy. Happy because of _her_. Happy because of _them_. She loved this side of him, but she barely knew it at all. She never seen him like this before, so she said the only thing she could think to say in response.

"I _definitely_ need to get to know you better, Mr. Dixon," she agreed wholeheartedly, latching on to their game of propriety and calling him by his formal name. A name she had no idea how much he loved to hear. A name that, he imagined, it would be part of his courtship duty to _inform_ her of how much he loved to hear. Of what it did to him to hear.

In some Austen-approvable fashion, of course.

"That mean I got permission to court you, Ms, Greene?" he asked her grinning, knowing that she'd just agreed to that but wanting to hear her say it anyway. "'Cause you know a gentleman don't do nothin' without a lady's permission…"

"Yes, you can court me, Mr. Dixon," she said beaming, wanting to laugh again from her joy but too overwhelmed by that joy to do anything other than smile. "I'd be honored to receive the attentions of a man such as yourself."

She said that last bit cheekily, trying hard to remember the way that people used to talk back in the olden days, but she'd meant every word of it.

She was absolutely honored to be at the center of Daryl's attentions.

Honored and _terrified_ because she didn't want to disappoint. She didn't want to let him down. But she supposed that was what their courtship would be about. If she did let him down, she'd let him down slowly. In little fits and starts. And that would be a heartache, but it would be manageable. They could get through it. They could still stay friends if they never stopped _being_ friends in the first place

If they didn't jump off that cliff until they were both entirely sure.

He'd heard the humor that she'd infused into that statement - had known that she'd been playing their new game - but her reference to receiving his _attentions_ still struck him. He looked at her and thought about all of the attention she really did need right then. He'd fed her - temporarily - but she needed so much more. She needed a shower and a fresh change of clothes - her own clothes from her own closet - and she needed to sleep.

She needed to rest and recuperate.

And he needed to fucking hunt if he was going to be feeding them both.

"Alright, girl," he said, nodding his head and laying his hands flat on the table like an executive making a decision. "Well, you know I think you're a fuckin' badass and you don't need Mr. Dixon takin' care of you or nothin'. But, if you're gonna give me the honor of courtin' you, I'm gonna give you all my attentions, okay? So why don't you let me escort you to your room? You can clean up and get out of them scrubs. Climb into that big bed of yours and get some sleep. And I'll go see if I can scrounge us up somethin' better than canned shit for dinner…"

He didn't want to leave her so soon - didn't really want to leave her ever - but he knew that there was almost nothing left in the cupboard now. If he couldn't catch something in the next hour or so, he could at least lay a few snares to see if he could trap something overnight.

They needed that - she needed that - and there was really no way around it.

"I'll just scope out the woods in back," he assured her, though she didn't look at all concerned by his proposal. There were a hundred open yards in front of the house - the hundred open yards that she'd crossed to come back home - but the woods abutting the back of the property were closer. "I... _we_ almost never get walkers. Definitely not near the house. And you're the first person I've seen since I've been here. But I'll be in shoutin' distance the whole time. You need anythin', you just call for Mr. Dixon and I'll come runnin', alright?"

She loved that plan.

As much as she wanted to spend every minute being charmed and courted by this new Daryl Dixon, she was exhausted. She was exhausted and she felt thoroughly disgusting, too. Grady had been a prison and a horrible place, but she had always been clean there. She'd had running water and soap and fresh scrubs once or twice a week. It had been a luxury that she'd grown used to and she was no longer accustomed to being the filthy creature she was now. She had walker blood on her clothes and on her skin and in her hair. She was greasy and sweaty and just plain _gross_ and she was eager to rinse all of that away.

To watch all the horrors of Grady and the road slide down the drain - her drain in her own bathtub - and be forgotten forever and ever.

"I think that sounds like a fine idea, Mr. Dixon," she told him with a smile, forcing herself away from the table. She held out her arm out in a crooked position - an invitation to interlock their limbs in proper fashion - and continued, "Will you guide me upstairs?"

He was at her side before she'd even finished vocalizing the request and didn't even try to suppress his grin when they interlaced their arms.

"Right this way, Ms, Greene," he said with all the gallantry he could muster, looking down into her smiling face - so unbelievably close to his now - and wondering how on God's green _Earth_ he got lucky enough to have this moment.

They walked in companionable silence up the stairs, both lost in their own wonder at this amazing turn of events and neither wanting to break the spell they seemed to be under. As they neared her door, Daryl was overcome by a sudden wave of relief that he'd always made a point of leaving Beth's room undisturbed. Of putting everything back where he had found it. There were some missing objects, of course, but nothing would appear out of place or ransacked. He planned on telling her that he'd gone through her things - assuming that she hadn't connected the dots on that already - but he was so glad there wasn't any physical evidence of his activity. He'd violated her privacy, and he was going to have to admit that, but he'd never _disrespected_ it and he hoped his treatment of her room made that clear.

And that, when everything was out in the open, that difference would be as meaningful to her as it had been to him.

When they got to the door, he stopped dead in his tracks. It was so strange to think that that room was no longer going to be his domain. That he no longer had the right to go in there. That everything that space had represented was, in a way, gone. Her room wasn't his shrine anymore. It wasn't his temple. It wasn't his emotional and spiritual retreat.

It was Beth Greene's room again.

Really and truly _her_ room.

And Mr. Dixon had to stay on the gentleman's side of the threshold. He was back to being stuck in the hallway. He chuckled at that. Chuckled that he was back to where he'd been at the beginning, but in the best possible way. In a way that was better than he could have ever imagined.

No matter how insane he'd have gotten.

"I'll just be gone for an hour or somethin'," he told her, reluctantly disengaging their arms and stepping away. "And when I come back I expect to find you sleepin', okay? All tucked in with visions of sugar plums dancin' in your head. That a deal?"

"It's a deal," she agreed readily, unable to stop her eyes from quickly darting over to the bed in question. Her bed. That bed that she had slept in since she was old enough to have a big girl bed and that was calling her even more strongly than the shower.

She was about to make a comment about how incredible it was to be standing in that doorway again after all those years, but he began talking first.

"Will you…?," he started to ask her, but cut himself off quickly: flinching when he'd realized what he'd almost said. He hadn't been thinking and it wasn't until he began to form the words that he'd seen how his question could have been misinterpreted.

"What?," she asked curiously, cocking her head in that way of hers.

"Nothin'," he told her, trying to shake it off, and started walking back towards the stairwell. "You holler if you need anythin'."

"What were you gonna ask me?," she pushed as he got to the top of the stairs.

He sighed and hung his head briefly before turning back to look at her. He hadn't wanted her to get the wrong idea, but he had really wanted to make the request, so he somewhat nervously took the opening.

"Will you leave the door open a crack? After you get into bed?," he asked her, unable to stop the blush from coming to his cheeks. "Just so I can check on you. Don't wanna...don't wanna bust in on you with the door closed, but I'm gonna wanna make sure you're good. Settled, you know?"

He didn't want her to think that he was a creep that wanted to watch her while she slept, but he knew that if he came home to a quiet room and a closed door he would worry. Worry whether she was alright. Worry that he'd imagined the whole thing. He _would_ be tempted to be the creep that watched her as she slept, of course, but he wouldn't give in to that. He wouldn't linger. He just wanted to be able to see her when he got back.

She was touched by his concern and by his obvious embarrassment and she couldn't help but tease him lightly out of her sheer happiness.

"Well, I'm not sure if that's entirely proper, Mr. Dixon," she said with a smile, bringing her hand to her chest in a parody of a scandalized Southern belle. Then added cheekily, "But since we don't have a chaperone, I guess we can get away with it."

A small part of him was concerned that she already felt like he was pushing her to do something that wasn't _entirely proper_ , but most of him was confident in her humor. And _all_ of him knew he was in trouble. If that was a taste of the game they were going to be playing, he was in _serious_ trouble. Beth Greene standing in her doorway, glowing golden in the afternoon sun, and teasing him about getting away with something improper because they didn't have a chaperone?

How was a man supposed to handle _that?_

He'd only ever consciously flirted with phantom Beth before and she didn't flirt back. Well, she did - in the context of his beloved stories - but that was in a voice that was, ultimately, his own. In a storyline that he controlled and was prepared for.

He didn't have to think on his feet.

And, in that moment, he really couldn't think at all. Couldn't think of a witty retort or even a sincere reply. All he could do was stare at her in awe: in complete disbelief that _this_ was now his life.

 _She_ was now his life.

Really and truly.

"Girl…," he said, just to say something, and ran a hand through his hair. "We _do_ got a chaperone. And his name is _Mr. Dixon's Honorable Intentions_. So go get ready for bed and don't test him, alright? 'Cause he's strict and I don't wanna get on his bad side."

That was true. He'd never forgive himself if he rushed her into anything and planned on listening to everything _Mr. Dixon's Honorable Intentions_ had to say. He was going to follow his every instruction to the letter.

Even if Beth Greene could tempt the Pope to sin.

When she was barely even _trying._

That's what really killed him. It hadn't even been that flirtatious of a remark. Might not have even been truly flirtatious _at all_. It could have easily just been innocent teasing. And it _still_ made his heart race.

"Don't worry," she assured him, with mock sincerity. "If he gives you any trouble, I'll protect you. I've been told I'm a bit of a badass."

She laughed at that, probably thinking it was ridiculous, and he laughed at it knowing that it was completely true. She really _was_ a badass and she could probably protect him from a lot of things.

But not from _Mr. Dixon's Honorable Intentions._

No one could protect Daryl from him.

He shook his head and, once again at a loss for words, simply pointed at her and told her to get. She nodded her head, giggled lightly in agreement and disappeared into her room and he waited for the door to shut before he started heading back downstairs. He went into the kitchen and grabbed her photo off of the table and put it back in his pocket. He had the real thing now but that didn't diminish the value of the picture and, for the rest of his life, he would always have it with him. He gathered his bow and his bag with his snares and other supplies and headed towards the front door, pausing there for a moment finding it so hard to leave.

So hard to leave her behind voluntarily. Especially knowing that she was, in some ways, vulnerable.

He also knew they were largely safe, though. The chances of anything happening if he left were incredibly slim, while the chances of her going hungry if he didn't hunt were one hundred percent. He stayed with his hand on the doorknob for a long minute, waiting to hear her turn on the shower to signal that she'd started seeing to her needs: to signal that she was doing her part and now it was time for him to do his. But it didn't come and he started to feel uncomfortable lurking downstairs listening for evidence of such personal activity. Listening for the sound of her, basically, getting naked and soaped down and all kinds of things that he shouldn't be listening to or thinking about.

So he forced himself to head out the door, trusting that she was more than capable of getting herself settled. He needed to hunt while he still had light and he needed to be the gentleman that didn't listen to her shower. Stalking off into the woods behind the house, he'd never been so happy that he could hunt more or less mindlessly because he'd never had so much to think about before: so many life-changing things to process and plan for.

Beth Greene was alive and she could be his if he did this right.

There was a possibility - an incredibly distant but real possibility - that every dream that he'd ever had could come true. So he couldn't fuck it up. He had to court her like a gentleman. He had to do something that no Dixon had ever done: truly earn the love of a good woman. And he only had the next hour or so to work on his next move.

Or, at least, that's what he thought.

In truth, the first big act in the courtship of Beth Greene was already underway and it was the reason why he hadn't heard her turn on the shower. Because last night hadn't been like other nights and, for once, Daryl hadn't left her room undisturbed. He'd left all of his notes and sketches and plans for Beth's memorial strewn across her desk: pages and pages of his reflections on her laying there waiting for him to return to in the morning. When Beth had closed the door to her room, she'd taken a moment just to look around the place and it hadn't taken her long to spot the mess of papers. And, while she hadn't remembered if they'd been hers or not, a quick glance had revealed the true author of the work. Her tired and filthy body might have longed for a shower and a bed, but no physical comfort could compete with the allure of what was written at the top of one of those pages and her curious mind had her sitting at her desk chair in a matter of seconds.

 _Beth Greene_  
 _She Brought Great Joy and Happiness to the Lives of Others_

He'd heard her song.

She had no idea how, but he'd heard her song.

She started going through page after page, completely overwhelmed by the portrait they painted of her. By the biography Daryl had been writing in the language of flowers. By the virtues and qualities that he seemed to believe that she possessed. By the snippets of memories and thoughts that he'd tried to capture. By what he'd been trying to do there. By what he'd been trying to do for _her._

It was beautiful, she thought

 _He_ was beautiful. He was absolutely _beautiful._

She really couldn't screw this up now.

* * *

 _Yeah, I know. How long can I drag it out, right? Sorry they're going to be taking it a little slow, but I'm still determined to wrap this up by the end of the year, so we WILL get there. I promise. :)_

 _And I know there were a lot of things that they didn't discuss, but the chapter had gotten way too long and I thought, realistically, they wouldn't cover everything in one conversation...especially when she's exhausted from being on the run and they've talked about so much already._

 _Anyway, I still feel like shit, so I'm going to end it here! My early Christmas present to you: a shorter AN. :)_

 _Thanks so much again for reading and for all your reviews/favs/follows/etc.! Your support means so much to me. Hope you have a wonderful week!_


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